What makes The Handmaid’s Tale so unnerving is its plausibility.

A lot of dystopian fiction is escapist, because it feels incredible in the older sense of that word. By contrast, The Handmaid’s Tale for the US is something that could happen in a few years, or sooner.

It’s probably easier to grasp the show deeply if you grew up among the Religious Right as I did — it’s clear that many liberals have no idea just how many of them there are and even less understanding of their true beliefs and how well the show in particular reflects them.

What makes the book work, and what makes the show even more affecting, is that it’d only take a few crises for America to look exactly like that — and most liberals would be just as complacent and unaware as even the protagonists are on the show. That is, until it is far too late.