permeating

There’s a kind of epidemic of meaninglessness permeating the culture in a way that is now undeniable.

Amnesty International said in a statement that, amidst all the anti-immigrant rhetoric permeating the political sphere, Americans must be “equally disgusted and dismayed by policies that put Haitians, and other Black, Brown, and Indigenous people seeking safety, in danger.”

Only then will these flat, digital doses of misinformation permeating our timelines—removed from their place in culture—become three-dimensional again.

So in a way, it’s very gratifying to hear that this kind of language is permeating social media.

It is a glimpse into a family and a small town that reads like a chapter out of “The Scarlet Letter” or “The Crucible,” narratives whose themes of fear, superstition, rage and religion are again permeating the nation’s political moment, including Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance’s recent comments that “Democrats want to put sexually explicit books in toddlers’ libraries.”