The standard dictionary definition now has an added clause:
cha·os, /'keI,as/, noun,
: complete confusion and disorder : a state in which behavior and events are not controlled by anything (see Donald Trump's Presidential Candidacy).
Language evolves to reflect changing times. The political climate is currently devolving at an almost hourly rate. The 2016 presidential cycle has just catapulted into super weird territory with normalcy a fainter and fainter memory. The dictionary is just trying to keep up.
It's hard to remotely sum up what has happened this last week in October. We have seen a tape where one candidate brags about his celebrity right to assault women, a debate where the same candidate promises to jail his opponent when he takes power, a defection of many of his party's representatives (some of them then re-aligning), and then that same candidate's outraged attacks at his own party.
In the meantime, this candidate's surrogates (apparently without much guidance or coordination) continue to make up varied excuses and outright lies to support the candidate. And outraged and more and more unhinged ground-level Trump supporters are taking the situation "into their own hands" across the country.
And worse yet, Stephen Colbert is on vacation this week.
Is there an antidote to chaos?
Possibly: do what you can, cherish what you love, hunker down, and laugh whenever possible.
