Staying Sane Inside Trump's Curated Lunacy
We’re all getting contact insanity from proximity to this violent, kleptocratic Administration.
There is no way for otherwise mentally well, emotionally stable human beings to exist in this kind of prolonged lunacy and extended predation without being internally altered, without losing some sense of normalcy, without developing a persistent PTSD that will likely never leave.
It’s understandable. We are all sharing our home with an unhinged cadre of miserable doomsday cult squatters who will not rest until everyone around them is as nihilistic and devoid of joy as they are.
The toxic cocktail of boundless hatred, prolific malfeasance, and breathtaking incompetence that they continually day drink from spills over into the lives of those of us who still wake up every morning just hoping to do our work, care for our families, help people, and enjoy human existence without having to contend with full-blown Armageddon.
No event comes without chaos, no day arrives free from existential catastrophe, no consequential moment is not leveraged to divide. For the last ten years, everything has been a fraud, a grift, a con, or a weapon, manufactured and stewarded by a collection of broken people who’ve found affinity in their greed, narcissism, and refusal to do the work of self-examination.
Combine this carefully curated chaos with incessant attacks on the media, dubious dissemination of information following emergencies, and never-clear investigatory procedures in their aftermath, and every single moment of crisis is made exponentially worse.
This week has been no exception.
Within nanoseconds of a shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, hundreds of MAGA influencers, Right-Wing talk show hosts, and Republican politicians began saturation bombing social media with a single message:
This is why we need Trump’s ballroom.
Uh, what?
Conservative influencers were still livestreaming from the site of an alleged assassination attempt on the President and Cabinet, in a monumental breach of what should be the absolute tightest of safety protocols—and the wave of propaganda and disinformation flooded our newsfeeds.
Not gratitude for the incident ending without death.
Not concerns for the safety and well-being of hundreds of people.
Not efforts to bring clarity to the bedlam of yet another supposed targeting of a President.
Such things would be the hallmarks of a collective not addled by cultic tribalism and possessing working empathy. They would have defined any other Administration in this nation’s history.
In the wake of the WHCD, as in every other time of national unease, what we get from Trump, from his soulless surrogates, and his wish-they-were-bots-but-sadly-they’re-actual people, is nonsense and buffoonery.
Instead of factual information, calm-headed discourse, and calls for unity, we get a coordinated virtual building campaign for another bloated, opulent, gold-plated monument to a cognitively-addled felon-rapist, who is rapidly losing his battle with time and gravity and wants to desecrate everything he can with his likeness before departing.
Trump’s cultivated mass delusion has permanently damaged tens of millions of people around us who quite likely would have been reasonable right now if not for having developed Stockholm syndrome and becoming emotionally tethered to their greatest abuser. Their identities and destinies are now inextricably bound to his.
And my friends, that leaves the rest of us; the sleep-deprived, heartbroken, rightfully furious human beings to try and hold onto our right minds while being immersed in the insane, the profane, and the cruel, by people who have nothing else to offer.
And our individual and collective sanity is non-negotiable if we are to withstand this steady onslaught of chaos, be effective in reversing our political realities, and course correct from the greatest error in our nation’s history.
Resist the pull of their nonsensical rage bait, do your best to avoid being distracted by their incendiary bombast, and do not be drawn into debate with people who have abandoned sense and benevolence.
Find times of rest and clarity, taking refuge in stillness and solitude.
Care for your physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional health.
Create beautiful things, cultivate gratitude, and fight like hell to stay joyful.
Immerse yourself in meaningful community with your like-hearted neighbors.
Partner in the redemptive, neighbor-loving work happening where you are.
And above all, refuse to let your mind descend into the spinning maelstrom of madness that has swallowed so many around us. We can’t afford to lose our heads or our souls right now.
American culture has demonstrated various forms of insanity for a long time -- from using "Christianity" to justify genocide, misogyny, and slavery, to the love affair with guns and violence, to destroying the planet that sustains us in the name of economic growth. And with all of that we have viewed ourselves as the beacon of democracy and morality. Now the truth is running rampant through this country and a reckoning is at hand.
I like how Bryan Cohen puts it: There’s been no such discussion in the aftermath of this shooting. Nothing on gun safety or mental health, not a word about political violence. Instead, what we got was a sales pitch for - you guessed it - Trump’s ballroom. A $400 million “solution” for gun violence. Well, gun violence against the president. But shootings happen every day in this country, and no one else has a $400 million ballroom to fall back on. Americans get shot in classrooms, concerts, church, malls, temples— and yet nothing changes. A collective shrug by the people who have the power to do something about it. So no, a ballroom is not a solution. It’s a bandaid— one intended to protect a very small and very privileged group of people. An apt microcosm for Trump’s America: fixes for the privileged elites, while the rest of the country is left out in the cold.