I'm politically tired. The Trump presidency wore me out, and I still feel drained from it over a year later. Does anyone else feel this way still? We woke up every morning wondering what damage the 5:30 AM Toilet Tweet might have done. Would it impact my job (more than one of them did)? Would I need to comfort another person crying due to what they feared the Tweet meant for their life going forward? US alliances built over the decades by presidents since Truman being attacked while autocrats are praised and even "loved." The very idea of a free press being attacked. Progress made in so many areas over decades just suddenly, it seems out of no where, could become the target of a tangent. Then millions would turn against the target of the tangent even if before the tangent they were indifferent or even supported the target of the tangent. A cult of personality being built around anger, vitriol, and a downright sense of meanness and self-pity. EVERY Day. Nonstop. In the very end we watched on TV as the very essence of American democracy was literally being invaded and attacked.
When I was younger, I had no problem talking to people on the phone. If my phone rang, I would answer it. Need to make a call? No problem. Then I had a job where I had to answer customer service type calls. Since then, I've dreaded speaking on the phone even in my every day life. I feel as if I might be struggling to make the same not happen to my social and political engagement following the Trump years. I used to enjoy waking up and learning about what was happening in the US and around the world. I enjoyed consuming politics be it in the news or watching Sunday morning policy/interview programs. Debating current events with my friends over drinks was always a great time. I just can't make myself tune back into US politics like I had been before.
But in a very big way, that is a victory for the Trumpists. Wearing your opponents down to the point they tune out is political victory if you can achieve it. With opponents silenced from being exhausted and dispirited, you are free to do the damage you wish to do. It never takes a the action of a majority for terrible, awful things to take place in a society. It only takes the silence of the majority. that silence allows a small minority to spread, without fear, the blight and horror that originates in their souls. Tuning out and the silence that comes with it is then complicity in any terrible action that could have been stopped if people had just spoken up. So we may be tired. We may wish to just have a moment (or a year...or a decade) of peace. But we can't allow ourselves to be silent. It runs the risk of being mistaken for consent. And let's not pretend that there aren't great horrors out there just waiting for their self justification become the loudest voice in the room. Once that happens, they can be unleashed upon the world.
- GRRA-Kyle
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