Bill Maher said something shortly after the Orange Abomination was elected president again. The exact words escape me, but it was something like: ‘This of course will be a horrible epic disaster but this time I’m not going to let him get inside my head.’
Good advice that.
The last time the Tangerine Fuhrer was in office was not a good time for me. In addition to the daily assaults on truth (heck, reality itself) we had terminal illness at home and pandemic illness everywhere else. Spent a lot of time doom scrolling the news and mourning the imminent end of liberal democracy, not to mention the hundreds of thousands who were dying that need not have. I already had enough to mourn at home.
Anger and despair ruled. Even after he left office, we had the spectacle of January 6 and then war in Ukraine. Little reason to hope. At least Putin’s Cock Holster wasn’t in office for that. The return of He Who Lies When He Breaths was a bona fide PTSD trigger for me, but I got over it by consciously deciding to not let him get inside my head.
Against the daily outrages, I have chosen to focus on my mental health. This isn’t denial. I’m still engaged, plugged in, but not sucked in. We all need to focus on what remains good and true in our own lives. We will soon be at war, my friends. Hopefully, not a shooting war, but war nonetheless. We are going to need resilience, not despair.
Eight years and hundreds of social media posts have told us what we are fighting against. We cannot forget what we will be fighting for.