WASHINGTON — Our pilgrims feast falls on Nov. 22, the dark date of President Kennedy's noonday murder 55 years ago. John F. Kennedy is forever Jack, favorite son of Massachusetts, where the pilgrims lived to see another winter in Plymouth.

What a bittersweet dish on the Thanksgiving table. And apt for a burnt country, paradise lost. To compare Kennedy's intellectual brilliance, shining spirit, ironic charm and high-flown language with President Trump's brazen malice and hateful persona is to see how far we've fallen. There's only one way out.

Her name is Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco. She brought you the 2010 Affordable Care Act as the historic house speaker. She learned politics as a girl among Baltimore's row houses. Her father was the mayor. She seeks to be speaker again.

Once "Little Nancy," she's a formidable match for Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. All three leaders are in their 70s, but she gets grief for her age — from men — when so much is at stake.

Let's be clear about the present peril. No president has ever publicly insulted the press, political opponents, women, people of color, immigrants, our allies, a decorated admiral and his own attorney general so brutally before. The unspeakable New Yorker has stained the nation's soul, even if you can't count all his lies. (The Washington Post tries.) Even if you don't care, he's letting the Saudi Arabian crown prince get away with murder.

The midterm congressional elections delivered a divided verdict, bittersweet through any party glass. Breaking diversity records, the new blue House is the change agent ahead, while the Southern-led Senate stays NRA blood-red.

The People's House may be our only hope of ridding ourselves of a scourge before Trump destroys democracy from within. You hear the phrase often in this town: "constitutional crisis."

Are we there yet?

With skill, work and grace, Pelosi is expected to lead House Democrats out of the wilderness. Seasoned Democrats — and a number of newcomers — say she can save the day as house speaker in a brand-new year. As Republicans tarred and feathered her, yet she champions a liberal worldview. That's coupled with a deft pragmatism and enough energy to go around her House caucus, conduct a major fundraiser and visit the Southern Texas border all in a day.

As with pilgrims and Kennedy, Massachusetts is center stage in a national drama. A cloud hangs n the People's House and Pelosi's blue sky.

His name is Seth Moulton, 40, a House Democrat with a "wicked smart" Harvard pedigree — three Crimson diplomas. Born in Salem, Massachusetts, where Puritans persecuted women in real witch hunts, Moulton displays traces of those origins. Puritan men liked sturdy goodwives who didn't seek power in public. In 1660, well before the Salem trials, Boston Puritans hanged a defiant Quaker woman.

True to form, Moulton is rounding up a small rump group to thwart the popular Pelosi from the House gavel. Nobody is running against her. But he cuts her "status quo" leadership, though he was a top aide to disgraced General David Petraeus, author of the failed "surge" strategy.

Could it be that insanely ambitious Moulton can't accept a California woman at the top of her lifelong game? The final vote for speaker is Jan. 3.

Moulton represents the North Shore, near Boston. The colonial "city on the hill" was Puritan Boston, harshly governed by learned men like John Winthrop. Puritans founded Harvard College in 1636.

The history plot thickens. For Moulton has that Puritan militaristic streak. Puritans waged war with American Indians, while William Penn's Quaker colony made peace treaties. Moulton led other Marines into combat in the Iraq War.

Moulton is hurting Democratic cohesion when they need it most and angering scores of women, blacks and liberals across the House. Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Baltimore Democrat, praised Pelosi as a phenomenon.

"I will be speaker of the House no matter what he (Moulton) says," Pelosi declares.

"Paradise Lost" was written by the Puritan poet, John Milton. He was blind, but somehow saw what's happening here.

To find out more about Jamie Stiehm and other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the website creators.com.