The problem that I am having is

[Raven]

that I am so gobsmacked by what has happened to this country that I tell myself it can't be real, that it will soon pass, that it is an aberration that will end with the November elections, that it is all one man's doing and will end when he goes away or is sent away. I feel this way because I need to love and respect my country and I am in the habit of trusting that the people I send to Washington will, when push comes to shove, do the right thing. None of this is holding anymore and I know that I am in denial. As bad as things are, I know they can and will get worse. I suspect I am not alone in feeling this way and I am at a complete loss as to what to do about it.

[2naSalit]

1. Reminds me of this...

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tC2Hd2-jCnM/Th_ATqj1guI/AAAAAAAAJ9Y/YDK7C3ZDmJI/s1600/9b+gahan+wilson+heaven.jpg


My favorite cartoon, well one of them, of all time.

[BSdetect]

4. Wilson did some classic cartoons. Great stuff.

[Thunderbeast]

2. As a high school sophomore

I worked on Robert Kennedy's Oregon primary campaign. Martin Luther King had been assassinated in the weeks before. Hundreds of American draftees were being killed in Vietnam every week. The cities were burning from riots. A week later, Kennedy himself was murdered in California. George Wallace was running for Oresident on a populist racist agenda.

I feared that this country could never recover. We have faced dark episodes since then, but the summer of 1968 was a desperate time of worry for the nation.

These ARE dark times. The racists and deplorables are fighting mightily to fight the arc of history as it bends toward justice.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. Lean into it. The only way to change it is to understand just how pervasive these attitudes are

built into our systems. Being surprised in 2018 that our country hurts people, works only for a few, and is designed to make life hard for almost everybody means that you've been in some ways protected from it, which is a kind of privilege. Dig into what specifically is filling you with despair, learn about the institutionalized attitudes behind it, and work to change.