When I grew up, I thought the Democratic Party was the great friend of minorities and women. The party wanted a world of equality, I thought. Most people I knew believed that too.

Sorry, I was an idiot.

Here’s our contemporary world as it actually exists: Ayaan Hirsi Ali — a woman who has had a clitoridectomy and has had literally hundreds of death threats, maybe thousands, risking her life daily fighting the horrible mistreatment of her sex under Islamic Sharia — has her honorary degree withheld by Brandeis University while Hillary Clinton — the putative Democratic Party nominee (still, I guess) for president — takes multimillion dollar donations from Saudi Arabia, where women aren’t even allowed to drive.

Something is wrong with that picture. Now how about this?

Barack Obama, the first black president, comes into office and black unemployment actually increases while, for the first time in years, relations between the races in our country are reported in a recent poll to be worse by both blacks and whites.

Something’s wrong with that picture too. Did Americans suddenly become more racist or is it something else — that something being the policies of the Democratic Party, encouraging division and then living off those same divisions like a parasitic animal?

The Republican Party is unimpressive, to be sure, but the Democratic Party is indeed an animal feeding on our nation and making it weaker and weaker. The way that party approaches women and blacks is quite remarkably similar — treat them as a unified interest group and then exploit them. How insulting, how deeply reactionary. If I were a woman or a black I would be disgusted. Obviously, not enough are — yet.

So we live in what the French call la vie a l’envers — life upside down. Do we challenge the situation as it continues to grow worse or just disappear, go about our private lives (go John Galt, as they say)? People must decide for themselves, but I know I am emotionally unfit to go John Galt. I have to fight. As Lady Gaga would say, I am born that way. But the problem for those of us who feel we have to fight for whatever reason is that it is extremely difficult for us to get the other side to see the truth. They are so stuck in their 1968 vision of the world, and even more of themselves, that they resist movement and will be in denial until their dying day. So often we end up fighting with each other.

But this is an interesting moment. The publication of an article in the New York Times under the headline “Hillary Clinton Faces Test of Record as Women’s Advocate” could at least be seen as a sign of glaciers moving (barely). That Carly Fiorina was quoted positively in the same article is also notable:

Saudi Arabia has been a particularly generous benefactor to the Clinton Foundation, giving at least $10 million since 2001, according to foundation disclosures. At least $1 million more was donated by Friends of Saudi Arabia, co-founded by a Saudi prince. Republicans quickly zeroed in on the apparent contradiction. Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard chief, told a crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference last month that Mrs. Clinton “tweets about women’s rights in this country and takes money from governments that deny women the most basic human rights.”

Okay, the author, Amy Chozick, used the weasel word “apparent” to modify an obvious contradiction…. and, sure, she ends her article, in time-honored NYT fashion, with a quote (slightly) favoring Hillary from her book. (Did Chozick actually read it? Merit badge, please.) But still, we must be patient. As we know, glaciers move slowly…. unless you really, really, believe in climate change.