Dahlia Lithwick: The Demoralizing Reality of Life Under Trump

[babylonsister]

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/demoralizing-reality-of-life-under-trump.html?fbclid=IwAR3-9JRs2hZUjop7Lxm3flO_PMxxKkaBNlNTWqKXR_Yrnpoijh0RkBCUjlA


The Demoralizing Reality of Life Under Trump
Every day is the same, but still awful.
By Dahlia Lithwick
Aug 21, 2019
5:36 PM

snip//

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.

The 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.

[Comatose Sphagetti]

1. This sums it up...

https://johnpavlovitz.com/2017/10/26/no-not-crazy/

[renate]

8. A good read

Thank you.

[hlthe2b]

2. Well, she definitely nailed how I am feeling...

'Wish there was something more uplifting at the end...

[calimary]

3. Remember that anti-war protest sign "War is unhealthy for children and other living things"?

The new version is “trump is unhealthy for children and other living things.”

[BigmanPigman]

7. I still have my poster!

I got it out of the old footlocker for Bush. It is safely back in its resting place but now which ever is my most recent protest sign is the current poster. I don't keep them up for long since the fucking moron always creates a new disaster to fight against. I think my 60s button that says "Give a damn" is the one that represents how I feel in general. We can NOT normalize the insanity! We must stay awake and not give up!

I find that a little, warm, soft, big eyed dog is the medicine that keeps me from jumping off a very tall building every day. That and Xanax! I sure wish I could still drink like I used to though, getting older sucks.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

13. a very big, huggable dog and a big carpentry project are my medicines

The dog outweighs me by about 100 pounds, but loves to get hugged.

The carpentry project requires some heavy lifting, hammering and concentration.

I keep my anger and outrage at 'simmering'. Cadet Bone Spurs and the Gangsters Of Putin *will* go down.

[Maru Kitteh]

14. Trump is war.

[colsohlibgal]

4. It Is Surreal In A Horrible Way

The first President in my lifetime where I am 100% sure I would be a better one....and really anyone sane, grounded, and with an IQ over 90 would be. The man is crooked and crazy, totally demented.

[Harker]

6. My fourth...

and the easiest call. From pre-installation days.

[Roy Rolling]

5. That same feeling

My friends and I in Louisiana were depressed in 2010 from the Deepwater Horizon spill. For weeks on end it spewed noxious oil into the pristine waters, defiling everything for thousands of square miles. And there was nothing we could do but watch the destruction for three months, watch dead animals covered in oil wash up on oil-soaked beaches. It was unbearable.

Multiply that by ten and that’s how 30 months under Trump has been. We have no shelter.

[smirkymonkey]

9. K&R

[riversedge]

10. I carry the OP feeling.

[lunatica]

11. What did it for me are the children in cages

In my mind there is absolutely nothing he can do to make up for that. Trump is a monster. That’s the nicest thing I can say about him.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. That's the first I've seen on DU that he's just changed his position on payroll taxes

There's so much shit coming from him that actual policy gets swamped.