EXCERPT:
SYKES: “And this really does feel like a societal sickness, that we don’t look out for one another, that we want to party more than we care about protecting the vulnerable among us. You know, Joe, you’re mentioning, you know, Christianity. We just had a poll showing that for the first time, less than half of Americans now attend church, we’re losing our religion. Well, part of it is, you know, people look at religion and Christianity and they say, 'Okay, is this about kindness, is this about caring for other people? Is this about the defense of life and about these values?' Well, no. It’s devolved into something very different. So it does feel, doesn’t it, like we’re being tested. We’re tested by the insurrection, we’re tested by this pandemic. What would America do if they saw the worst possible outcomes from this kind of rhetoric and these kind of attitudes? And the answer is, I’m sorry to say, not reassuring."