I’m trying to wean the wife off the national half-hour news, which is now Trump and nothing but Trump. I can see it’s depressing her, but she won’t stop watching it. I’ve tried to tell her that the whole purpose of today’s “news” is to provoke and titillate.
I get that. I don’t watch TV news and haven’t for 25+ years (smartest thing I ever did was stop after my husband died), but I’m having a hard time purging that bastard from my bloodstream, as he’s all over my online sources, too. When you consider how immersed I’ve/we’ve been for the last eight years, it’s going to take a while. It’s hard to kick a habit even when it causes you pain and makes you sick. I’m giving myself a few more days to disengage, but it may take a bit longer to do it fully. Peace to you and the Mrs., my friend. 
Well…I was, thank you. I’ve put rather a dent in my husband’s vacation by crying for the last couple days. But it has been very nice here and we still have some traveling to do before our return to the states. I’m glad I don’t have to deal any of our fellow Americans right now.
Hang in there.
A post was merged into an existing topic: FreakinLiberal posts and his thread: Why no “introduce yourself” section?
I’ve pretty much stopped my regular perusal of CNN and now focus on Canadian news on the CBC website and CBC radio. Yesterday the only mention of Trump was just one small article about the upcoming renewal in 2026 of the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement.
To add to the above post, I was just out running some errands, one of which involved a fairly long drive. It was so nice to get away from CNN and to my car radio which is always tuned to CBC Radio One – listening to thoughtful documentaries and local and Canadian national news. There really is a world out there that is still functioning and will continue to do so.
For instance, one of the shows I listened to was a science show called “Quirks and Quarks”, which did an interview with a professor at the College of South Florida who was studying alcohol consumption in fruit flies. I’m not making this up, and in fact quite a lot of studies have been done on how alcohol affects fruit flies in an effort to better understand its psychopharmacology in humans. Here is one of the things I learned.
When a male fruit fly is rejected by a female, the male drinks significantly more alcohol than usual. Also, when a female fruit fly drinks enough alcohol, she becomes much less picky about who she mates with.
Now isn’t that much more delightful than listening to Trump bloviate, or news about Trump bloviating? 
In fact, maybe this deserves a thread of its own.
And in case anyone thinks I’m just making this up, here’s coverage of similar research – not the one the interview was about, but one with similar conclusions …
I used to live in Brussels. Go have yourself a bowl of moules Provençale and a side of frites. Or a nice steak au poivre ala crème. It’ll cure what ails ya.
Oh yeah, it’s been a chocolate, fries, and beer kind of week!
Well, I’m going back on my Trump-free diet. He hasn’t even taken office yet and the stupidity of this asshole has me grinding my teeth into nubs. Nothing I can do about it, so I’m removing him from my view as best I can (again), and just continuing to hope the fucker dies soon.
Yeah, I’m with you on that. I slipped and commented on a thread, but I’m going back on the wagon. He’s all over the news media more than ever. The whole world seems to be waiting for him to take a dump on it the inauguration.
Not really, I find it pretty depressing to hear evidence that we aren’t really any more evolved than fruit flies 
I guess the fact that a lot of people actually listen to and buy trump’s bloviating isn’t really all that surprising in light of this. That gives me an idea for an experiment- play trump speeches to a bunch of fruit flies, who have access to alcohol. Observe which ones seem to be paying rapt attention, and which ones are hitting the booze in reaction to hearing him. Selectively breed the ones who drink when hearing trump, and in a few generations you’ll have much smarter, less gullible fruit flies!
There is: you can become politically active, at whatever level works for you.
My wife and I have become involved with Indivisible.org, a decentralized, grassroots organization that is working to block the agenda of Trump and the right at every step. It was founded in 2016 by two congressional staffers who understand what gets politicians to act, and their work helped block some of the worst efforts of Trump 1.0.
There’s more to be done than writing post cards or door-knocking at election time. It’s contacting elected officials at every level either to urge them to do the right thing or to praise them for doing it. Phone calls, e-mails, petitions, etc. A call to your “electeds,” as Indivisible calls them, takes just a few minutes, but can make a difference.
There are thousands of Indivisible chapters around the country, and one is probably near you. You can meet and talk with other like-minded people, which is reassuring just by itself.
Or you can find other organizations that may be a better fit for your interests and outlook. There are lots. Just doing something is better than sitting back and waiting for the worst. You will feel better for making an effort.
“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” – John Stuart Mill
That said, I think we all perfectly understand the need to insulate ourselves from the constant onslaught of evil and stupidity, for at least some of the time. My wife and I have declared Shabbat (Saturday) as a non-political day: we don’t look at news, and try to do fun things that have nothing to do with current events. She calls it FFS: Felon-Free Saturday. I mute the P&E forum and posts tagged “Trump.” Sometimes I leave them muted for days after.
Nothing active near me but a good resource for some folks.
I am exhausted right now for a variety of reasons. For now I will just occasionally peek in from the sidelines.
There’s just one problem with that.
President Vance. Think about it.
We are and have been for years in every election from local to national. But there is nothing we can do about Trump’s actions now that he’s been elected, and I really don’t need any spikes in my blood pressure from bashing my head against that wall.
I didn’t want to start a new thread, but wanted to share. There isn’t any real point to these ramblings.
This old song has been running through my mind
“I saw you last night and got that old feeling–”
Yesterday I had an old feeling, a genuine anxiety attack such as I haven’t had in many months. I remember having something like that when I woke up the morning after the 2016 election and realized what had happened. But now we know what we’re up against. We didn’t then. Remember when everyone (even Dopers) said, “He’ll start acting presidential any day now.” Right. Now the hate is right out in the open.
I’ve got that old feeling again. The knot in my stomach. The tight band around the forehead. The weight on the back of the neck. It’s easy to say just stick your head in the sand and ignore it. I haven’t watched TV news in 25 years, so at least I’m not getting it in 3-D full color. But I read. And the thing is, I’m not in his sights. The stuff he says he’s gonna do to upend, destroy, and remake the USA probably won’t even affect me. I have no family. I have a secure income and assets. I’m not going to be deported, arrested, publicly shamed, made homeless, laid off, or physically threatened. I’m in a secure-old-person bubble. I really could put my head in the sand and ignore everything. But I can’t. How can you?
Yesterday I went to the hair salon at The Home and while I was waiting, the stylist and another resident went on and on about how inspiring the Inauguration was, how great Melania looked, how much she reminds them of Jackie Kennedy, how trump will accomplish so much more this time because he has surrounded himself with a great crew, and by the way where was Michelle Obama and didn’t she skip Whats-His-Name’s funeral, too? Ahese two women, for the life of them, do NOT understand why so many people hate trump!
My wife was bemoaning the fact that she is feeling depressed, but she keeps watching the damn news and reading the NYT every day. I’ve told her several times to cut the cancer out of her life, as there is absolutely nothing we can do about any of it other than donate to the ACLU or other activist organizations. What is the point of even living if all you’re going to do is wring your hands and raise your BP? I’m on day three of no NYT and putting on headphones when the news is on.
Best thing I ever did was to switch from BBC Radio 4 (news, current affairs and discussion) to Radio 3 (classical music, news headlines for a minute or two several times early in the day but nothing later). I avoid TV news like the plague, but I do read the Guardian.
I get most of my info on what Trump and the Republicans are doing from here, Stephen Colbert, and The Daily Show. I also have a subscription to the paper edition of the Raleigh News & Observer mostly for the comics and puzzles. I was disheartened yesterday when I realized that most pf the news section of the paper was devoted to all the things Trump has been doing to interfere with peoples’ rights and making a laughingstock of the US.