For as long as I can remember, my American life has been about politics. I was barely six when we immigrated here, but thanks to my brilliant and opinionated mother, few grade-schoolers were more passionate than I was about everything from the Bill of Rights to the Gulf War. Sundays started with Meet the Press and closed on 60 Minutes; every childhood weeknight belonged to Peter Jennings, and at the risk of really dating myself, few things more greatly revolutionized my college mornings than the introduction of that old “Headlines” email from The New York Times.

Yet, lately, I can barely stand to look at the Times’ front page. Morning Joe’s been replaced by Frasier and Serial. And it isn’t a question of comfort, an escape from the deluge of terrorist attacks and climate disasters and ever more appalling acts of corruption in every unexamined corner. It is, I’ve come to realize, simply this: I feel my heart’s been broken.