The books, A Higher Loyalty by James Comey, and The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and Other Appreciations by John McCain, hint of the moral war being fought in this country.

Rex Tillerson, former Secretary of State, fired in the usual Trump fashion, had not fit well in the job to which he was assigned. Inexperienced in government operations, he neglected to form necessary relationships with the people who worked for him.

Nevertheless, unlike other wealthy men appointed by Trump, Tillerson didn’t work to grease wheels for the rich. He was a good man trying to do his job honorably. Speaking recently to the graduating class of Virginia Military Institute, he joined others in spotlighting the moral challenges this country faces.

“If our leaders seek to conceal the truth, or we as people become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in facts, then we as American citizens are on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom,” Tillerson said.

Though he did not mention Trump by name, listeners surely understood the speech as a repudiation of Trumpian practices, of labeling as fake any news that is unfavorable to the administration.

The danger of Trump so filling the airwaves with easily provable untruths is that we accept lying as just part of the game. It isn’t. We’ve never had a politician lying so often and with so little shame.

As Tillerson said, “When we as a people, a free people, go wobbly on the truth, even on what may seem the most trivial of matters, we go wobbly on America. . . . If we do not as Americans confront the crisis of ethics and integrity in our society and among our leaders in both the public and private sector, and regrettably at times into the nonprofit sector, then American democracy as we know it is entering its twilight years.”