I feel like the world is going crazy these days. Now, I know that crazy times are nothing new, but there’s something frighteningly different happening at the moment that I don’t know how to work with.

Not half an hour ago, a woman in the elevator smugly announced to the rest of the passengers in the car that she didn’t believe that climate change was real. She insisted that the scientists said it wasn’t happening. When one of the other riders gently pressed her on this point, she had no detail. It was simply what she believed and the idea we would challenge her was rude and outrageous.

The events unfolding at the Republican National Convention are a larger, more troubling example of this societal insanity. Patent untruths are being told from the stage while people cheer unstintingly for an egotistical narcissist whose organization openly admits that he’s not actually interested in the work of being president.

I am worried. As a woman (and the member of a family who was touched by an illegal abortion). As a Jew. As a person who counts many members of the Islamic faith among her community. As someone who respects science and the pursuit of knowledge. As a friend and family member to immigrants, people of color, and those who identify as part of the LGBTQ world.

Even if Trump doesn’t win (and goodness, I hope that he does not), the ideological divide in our country that his popularity demonstrates is troubling. How will we ever heal these rifts?