This is a picture of a magnet that was being sold at Strand's Book Store in New York City a few years ago. No, I did not buy it, but I liked it and took a picture, which I am sharing here now.
Yes, I will admit to feeling a certain kind of limited depression, as well as a measure of fatigue, since Donald Trump once again assumed office. It is similar to the first time he was president, except it feels more intense this time around. Perhaps it is knowing that this time, it feels like there is an absence of guard rails for his excesses.
It is a mixture of things. There is him and his administration actually going through with these crazy schemes of his. Also, it is watching the policies of Project 2025 - the same Project 2025 which he claimed, as a candidate, to not be associated with - being strongly pursued and implemented. Knowing also that he is sounding an acting like a territorial expansionist from another time. We have now had a major world leader of a serious power be this transparently hungry for new territory since World War II. Seriously. And the rest of the world is watching with a mixture of amusement, anger, and trepidation over how quickly and completely the once stable United States seemed to have gone off the rails.
Beyond that, it is the knowledge that this is the culmination of a sequence of bad decisions that have reflected poorly on Americans now for numerous decades, dating back at least to my childhood. That we seem to be witnessing now that phase when things are growing noticeably and undeniably worse, as we lose our benefits, with our debts and our inflation inevitably continuing to rise, and unemployment growing while those who are contributing strongly to all of this are actually celebrating (in some cases with making a show of a chainsaw on a public stage) all of this.
Worst of all, our American democracy is clearly being eroded. It has reached a point where I admittedly, cannot even say with certainty that we still actually are a democracy anymore. At the very least, it feels like we have entered a "fascism light" phase, with the promise that things will grow much, much heavier soon enough. Knowing that nothing will return to what not long ago was accepted as normal, because American politics under Trump has now completely been altered.
Or perhaps this is the worst thing of all: knowing that Americans completely and unnecessarily chose to bring this on themselves. Nobody forced any of this on us. There was no hostile invading force which sought to destroy us, at least from the outside. All of this was because of enemies from within, and there were plenty of warning sides. Collectively, we Americans just scoffed at the warning signs, with plenty of people condemning those of us who were expressing our outrage by urging us to stop overreacting.
Now, it feels like if anything, we should have been even louder, or stronger somehow.
Yet, all of this also feels inevitable, somehow. I long felt that someone like this was inevitable. Perhaps it was watching "The Dead Zone" as a kid, and seeing the images of brainwashed Americans enthusiastically chanting "Stillson! Stillson!" among other early warning signs that did it for me. There were other early warnings, but that is the one which resonated with me the most, particularly with the rise of Cult 45 surrounding Trump.
You know, I remember a quote once from Kurt Vonnegut which I have since read numerous times on the internet. Something about how scary it is when you realize that your high school class is now running the world. Now, I am not entirely sure about the world. But when I do think of Donald Trump and the state of the country, my old high school classmates do indeed come to mind. You see, I come from an unusually conservative town for New Jersey. This always felt like a bastion of hardline conservatism, even kind of a small extension of the Deep South in North Jersey, if that makes any sense. The vast majority of my high school classmates were a product of this deep conservatism, and remain so to this day. Many of them are loyal Trump supporters, and most of those display this loudly and proudly. In fact, it was in that old hometown of mine when I realized, back on Halloween of 2016 when I took my son trick or treating, that I realized that Trump likely would win the election. So yeah, it's my old high school that comes to mind in my case whenever I hear something about Trump's cult following.
Many of those old high school classmates acted predictably. Some rant and rave about the latest conspiracy theories regarding Obama or Biden or whatever else Qanon or FOX News or OAN or whatever other ridiculous excuse for sources they turn to in order to get their news of the world. Some unfriended me for posting anti-Trump stuff on Facebook quite often. Others debated me, or expressed some measure of anger. And there was this one guy - he is gay, and his support of Trump still kind of baffles me a bit - who once criticized me for constantly putting anti-Trump material on my Facebook feed. Despite the fact that he and I had not really spoken, much less seen each other in just around thirty years, and despite the fact that we hardly really knew each other that well back then, either, he nevertheless felt sufficiently confident that he knew all about me and my life to suggest that I must be unhappy in my life, and that constantly posting things about Trump was sure proof about that truth, as he suggested.
Here's the funny thing: I feel generally happier and more content in terms of my personal life than ever before, at least in my adult life. Not that I am some huge success. Yet, I did my part to raise a wonderful son into this world. I am in a stable relationship, and recognize more and more the older I get that in many ways, my life has been quite blessed. There really is no reason for me to complain.
And yet, it felt to me then, and feels to me even more now, that the state of this country has never been worse in my lifetime. In truth, I always felt that there was something rotten just underneath the surface of the lush, immaculate, green lawn of this nation - and not buried all that deep, either - but it has grown increasingly obvious over the course of time. It was starting to be pretty damn obvious during the years of George W. Bush, Jr., especially with the arrogance with which that administration pursued the illegal and immoral war in Iraq. But it has grown blatant and in your face, impossible to avoid now under Trump and his team.
To me, it feels like my duty as an American is to try and sound the alarm when I see things going this badly. It feels like the alarm should have been sounded a long time ago, but it feels particularly apparent when enough Americans view someone like Donald Trump as the answer to these problems and then put him in the highest office in the land. So I kept posting, hoping that other likeminded people might feel a little less alone in their dissent, and also in far-fetched hopes that some of those Trump supporters might see something which causes them to...well, to think a little bit, frankly. At the very least, to see that not everybody will fall in line as they do to support a "Dear Leader" of Trump's variety.
However, there came a point when it felt like a pointless thing. The message surely was received that I did not like Trump, and it felt like an exercise in futility to keep relentlessly posting anti-Trump material on my Facebook feed. It began to feel repetitive and redundant, and even, somehow, counterproductive. So I began to focus more on producing anti-Trump sentiments here on my blog, where I can explain my rationale a bit more in detail. Whether or not anyone reads this is another matter. But at the very least, I can hope to reach someone reading with my own brand of logic, and my own interpretation of what we are seeing. Surely, it's a smaller audience, but what it makes up for in that regard I can believe and hope it makes up for in substance.
Today, it felt like a good time to shift gears a little bit. Because indeed, this constant flow of bad news is depressing as hell. It cannot be good for our collective mental well-being. So it seemed worth sharing this video which recognizes and addresses this reality.
As for me, I will keep resisting in my own small way. We all know that what is going on is wrong and bad. Bad for the country, and even bad for the world. I have said that we as a nation collectively deserve what is going on, and the surely negative ramifications which will come from it. But that does not mean that I believe that we all individually deserve this. If you are like me, you probably feel a bit angry at the people who imposed this ridiculous farce of a government upon the nation and, yes, the world. It's important to know that there are people who are awake out there and watching this with horror, just as you are. And to try and keep fighting this...well, this evil.
Still, we need to keep checking on ourselves from time to time. To keep an eye on our own mental health, both collectively and, yes, individually. So take a look at this video, and recognize that all of what's going on in the world is not good for us, for our well-being. It is important that we recognize this at times, and yes, that we can walk away from time to time and escape, if even for a short while. We need to take care of ourselves, both as a group and individually. So take a moment to try and step back if you need it, and remind yourself that there is more to life than all of this nonsense which we are bombarded with every time we turn on the news, or even glance at the seemingly always depressing headlines.
How Trump Is Making Us Ill And What We Can Do About It
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