Monday, September 23, 2019
Tuesday, September 3, 2019
Yes, It Is True!
The Demoralizing Reality of Life Under Trump
Every day is the same, but still awful.
By DAHLIA LITHWICK AUG 21, 2019
It’s boring, at this point, to talk about the cost of living with Donald Trump as president—it’s the water we all swim in now, so it’s neither unique nor new nor surprising. And yet it’s still true, which is why it’s refreshing to read Matt Ford’s excellent piece in the New Republic, “Trump’s Tax on the National Psyche.”Ford’s formulation is a useful way to think about the massive toll, in terms of time and energy stolen from Americans forced to pay attention to inane tweets and half-baked policy, this presidency has had on all of us. As Ford observes, Trump, himself an inveterate squanderer of time, is wasting all of ours: “Trump’s haphazard style of governance,” he writes, “forces journalists, lawyers, and government officials to expend innumerable hours on doomed initiatives and errant tweets. His corrosive effect on American politics forces Americans to devote far more hours of their life to thinking about him than they should.” The problem is that we have no choice but to follow the inane tweets and oppose the half-baked policy. There are serious consequences that follow to transgender soldiers, DACA kids, green card holders, and, of course, families at the border when we don’t.As Ford further notes, the psychic costs of following and resisting all of this stupidity are not borne equally by all Americans: “A Gallup poll from April found that younger and less affluent Americans felt more daily stress in general. Women reported higher rates than men in the APS survey; black and Hispanic Americans also registered higher levels of anxiety about the future than their white counterparts.” And this stress, in turn, has marked health impacts, again borne unequally by communities with less power. Still, it’s not just that families are ripped apart in immigration raids and that Latina mothers suffer higher rates of miscarriages—everyone following along with the cruelty at home is suffering too. In the spring, Pew polled Americans asking them to describe how Trump’s comments and statements made them feel. The top seven responses, in descending order? They felt concerned (76 percent), confused (70 percent), embarrassed (69 percent), exhausted (67 percent), angry (65 percent), insulted (62 percent), and frightened (56 percent). In the Washington Post, William Wan and Lindsey Bever write that “Researchers have begun to identify correlations between Trump’s election and worsening cardiovascular health, sleep problems, anxiety and stress, especially among Latinos in the United States.” In other words, it’s not just that Trump is wasting our time and mental space; he’s also making us physically ill.
Buried in there is part of the answer to the age-old question of whether Donald Trump’s words—packed with lies and hubris and threats—really have any force. Given that those words are likely not to be truthful, we may not need to take them literally or seriously, as the formulation goes. But meaningless or gibberish or lies or all three, his words still make us anxious, worried, and stressed. As Ford notes, it’s not just the opportunity cost of what we could be doing with our time, though I could have learned to be a master baker in the time I’ve spent chronicling the outrages of this administration. The actual physical and mental toll being taken is even worse than what my family has missed out in chocolate amaretto soufflés.
The actual psychic toll on our mental health is crippling. The lost sleep, the grinding anxiety, the escalating fears don’t just represent squandered time. They start to chip away at your health and at your soul. The healthy response would be to tune it out altogether, but since actual people are actually suffering the brutal consequences, we cannot. And so here we are back in the narcissist’s loop, fueling his need to be at the center because, well, there he is at the center.
I have been writing about Trump burnout for a while now, but I confess that this summer has been harder, both because the cruelty we once dreaded and feared is manifestly occurring all around us every day and because vast numbers of our friends and neighbors are either exulting in it or sidelining themselves as a result of what Vox, waaaay back in 2017 once dubbed “Trump fatigue syndrome,” a kind of fugue state involving numbness, burnout, and a corresponding loss of reality. This is then doubly concerning, because in addition to being jealous of these people’s newfound freedom, as Nesrine Malik writes, for the Guardian, the real jeopardy of authoritarianism starts with fatigue. Moral seriousness seems to require being aware enough of the chaos everywhere that you accept being punched in the mouth with it every day.
he email I have received most often this summer goes something like this: “I am doing too much. I am not doing enough.” The same can be said for all of us. Self-care in the form of manicures and time with the kids isn’t making a dent in it. And if one stops to think about the cumulative effect of gerrymandering, election interference, vote suppression, and a president signaling that he will not concede even if he loses in 2020, pinning all hopes in the next election feels one notch more sanguine than we can afford to be.
So, Donald Trump, who just in the past two days refused to visit Denmark because it wouldn’t sell Greenland, tossed an anti-Semitic canard out to see how it landed on American Jews, retweeted a conspiracy theorist who claims Trump is the king of the Jews, reversed himself on gun policy and payroll taxes, and mulled ending birthright citizenship by way of executive order, just keeps on trucking. No check in sight. Don McGahn is not going to do anything to stop him, Congress is not going to do anything to stop him, Senate Republicans are not going to do anything to stop him, and Sean Spicer is on Dancing With the Stars. Cold comfort perhaps, but if you don’t feel that you are losing your damn mind, something would be profoundly wrong with you.
We are all doing too much. And we are all also not doing enough. And there is nothing wrong with you, beyond being a human being in categorically insane times.
Every day is the same, but still awful.
By DAHLIA LITHWICK AUG 21, 2019
It’s boring, at this point, to talk about the cost of living with Donald Trump as president—it’s the water we all swim in now, so it’s neither unique nor new nor surprising. And yet it’s still true, which is why it’s refreshing to read Matt Ford’s excellent piece in the New Republic, “Trump’s Tax on the National Psyche.”
Buried in there is part of the answer to the age-old question of whether Donald Trump’s words—packed with lies and hubris and threats—really have any force. Given that those words are likely not to be truthful, we may not need to take them literally or seriously, as the formulation goes. But meaningless or gibberish or lies or all three, his words still make us anxious, worried, and stressed. As Ford notes, it’s not just the opportunity cost of what we could be doing with our time, though I could have learned to be a master baker in the time I’ve spent chronicling the outrages of this administration. The actual physical and mental toll being taken is even worse than what my family has missed out in chocolate amaretto soufflés.
The actual psychic toll on our mental health is crippling. The lost sleep, the grinding anxiety, the escalating fears don’t just represent squandered time. They start to chip away at your health and at your soul. The healthy response would be to tune it out altogether, but since actual people are actually suffering the brutal consequences, we cannot. And so here we are back in the narcissist’s loop, fueling his need to be at the center because, well, there he is at the center.
I have been writing about Trump burnout for a while now, but I confess that this summer has been harder, both because the cruelty we once dreaded and feared is manifestly occurring all around us every day and because vast numbers of our friends and neighbors are either exulting in it or sidelining themselves as a result of what Vox, waaaay back in 2017 once dubbed “Trump fatigue syndrome,” a kind of fugue state involving numbness, burnout, and a corresponding loss of reality. This is then doubly concerning, because in addition to being jealous of these people’s newfound freedom, as Nesrine Malik writes, for the Guardian, the real jeopardy of authoritarianism starts with fatigue. Moral seriousness seems to require being aware enough of the chaos everywhere that you accept being punched in the mouth with it every day.
he email I have received most often this summer goes something like this: “I am doing too much. I am not doing enough.” The same can be said for all of us. Self-care in the form of manicures and time with the kids isn’t making a dent in it. And if one stops to think about the cumulative effect of gerrymandering, election interference, vote suppression, and a president signaling that he will not concede even if he loses in 2020, pinning all hopes in the next election feels one notch more sanguine than we can afford to be.
So, Donald Trump, who just in the past two days refused to visit Denmark because it wouldn’t sell Greenland, tossed an anti-Semitic canard out to see how it landed on American Jews, retweeted a conspiracy theorist who claims Trump is the king of the Jews, reversed himself on gun policy and payroll taxes, and mulled ending birthright citizenship by way of executive order, just keeps on trucking. No check in sight. Don McGahn is not going to do anything to stop him, Congress is not going to do anything to stop him, Senate Republicans are not going to do anything to stop him, and Sean Spicer is on Dancing With the Stars. Cold comfort perhaps, but if you don’t feel that you are losing your damn mind, something would be profoundly wrong with you.
We are all doing too much. And we are all also not doing enough. And there is nothing wrong with you, beyond being a human being in categorically insane times.
Sunday, September 1, 2019
Is America Beyond Hope?
When will you be giving up your gun rights?
How many more children, students and adults have to die a senseless death? Why are Americans killing each other?
Why are mass shootings so much more common in the US than in other countries?
These are questions which need to be answered.
The answers to a lot of the deaths in the below list have to be addressed on the political stage.
When mass shootings happen, government officials are reacting with words of "senseless cowardly act" and "thoughts and prayers". This seems to be all that American politicians are able to come up with. But governments have the duty to protect the lives of their country's citizens and residents. That is indeed the main purpose of having a government. In the US that task was never achieved. Since the early days of the American nation the US government has never been able to protect their people. America has always been an extremely violent nation.
Yet, the 2. amendment could have been reworked and adjusted to modern times. Or it could have been repealed all together. Will that ever happen? Are Americans willing to give up their antiquated gun rights in order to save the lives of thousands of their own people? When will the US Government stand up to the NRA and declare the NRA a terrorist organisation?
Meanwhile, the list goes on. Down below is the list for this year only. And as you know, the killing in Odessa won't be the last mass shooting. Get ready for the next condemning by your governor, the next "thoughts and prayers" session, the next public outrage in the press, and the next mass funeral.
Have a wonderful day in crazy-land.
How many more children, students and adults have to die a senseless death? Why are Americans killing each other?
Why are mass shootings so much more common in the US than in other countries?
These are questions which need to be answered.
The answers to a lot of the deaths in the below list have to be addressed on the political stage.
When mass shootings happen, government officials are reacting with words of "senseless cowardly act" and "thoughts and prayers". This seems to be all that American politicians are able to come up with. But governments have the duty to protect the lives of their country's citizens and residents. That is indeed the main purpose of having a government. In the US that task was never achieved. Since the early days of the American nation the US government has never been able to protect their people. America has always been an extremely violent nation.
Yet, the 2. amendment could have been reworked and adjusted to modern times. Or it could have been repealed all together. Will that ever happen? Are Americans willing to give up their antiquated gun rights in order to save the lives of thousands of their own people? When will the US Government stand up to the NRA and declare the NRA a terrorist organisation?
Meanwhile, the list goes on. Down below is the list for this year only. And as you know, the killing in Odessa won't be the last mass shooting. Get ready for the next condemning by your governor, the next "thoughts and prayers" session, the next public outrage in the press, and the next mass funeral.
Have a wonderful day in crazy-land.
| Date | Location | Dead | Injured | Total | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| August 31, 2019 | Midland–Odessa, Texas | 6[n 1] | 21 | 27 | 2019 West Texas shooting: Six people were killed and twenty-one others were injured on the Interstate 20. One of the suspects was killed. |
| August 4, 2019 | Dayton, Ohio | 9 | 27 | 37 | 2019 Dayton shooting: Nine people were killed and 27 were injured outside of a bar. The perpetrator was killed by police. |
| August 3, 2019 | El Paso, Texas | 22 | 24 | 46 | 2019 El Paso shooting: A gunman killed twenty-two people and injured twenty-four others at a Walmart. The gunman was arrested. |
| July 28, 2019 | Gilroy, California | 4[n 1] | 15 | 19 | Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting: A gunman killed 3 people, including one 6 year-old boy, attending Gilroy's annual Garlic Festival; 12 more people were injured. The shooter killed himself. |
| May 31, 2019 | Virginia Beach, Virginia | 13[n 1] | 5 | 18 | Virginia Beach shooting: A gunman killed 12 people and injured five others at a municipal building. The gunman died at the scene.[9] |
| May 7, 2019 | Highlands Ranch, Colorado | 1 | 8 | 9 | STEM School Highlands Ranch shooting: A school shooting was reported at STEM School Highlands Ranch, around 1:50 p.m, two shooters targeted separate locations and killed one student and injured eight more before being arrested.[10] |
| April 30, 2019 | Charlotte, North Carolina | 2 | 4 | 6 | 2019 UNCC shooting: Six people were shot, two fatally, on the last day of classes at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The student gunman was taken into custody after he ran out of ammunition.[11] |
| April 27, 2019 | Poway, California | 1 | 3 | 4 | Poway synagogue shooting: One person was killed and at least three were wounded by a shooter at the Chabad of Poway synagogue.[12] |
| February 15, 2019 | Aurora, Illinois | 6[n 1] | 6 | 12 | Aurora, Illinois, shooting: A 45-year old man opened fire at a Henry Pratt Company plant and killed five people and injured six others. He was a former worker at the plant and he was killed in a shootout with police. |
| January 28, 2019 | Houston, Texas | 2 | 4 | 6 | Pecan Park raid: Two people were killed and four police officers were injured during a drug raid at a home. |
| January 26, 2019 | Ascension Parish, Louisiana, and Livingston Parish, Louisiana | 5 | 0 | 5 | January 2019 Louisiana shootings: A 21-year old man killed five people, including his parents, in two parishes in Louisiana.[13] |
| January 23, 2019 | Sebring, Florida | 5 | 0 | 5 | 2019 Sebring shooting: Five people were killed in a hostage incident and shooting at a bank. The suspect was taken into custody by police.[14] |
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