Thread is, of course, about Trump/MAGA, but also only partially so.
The current insanity, cruelty, destructiveness, idiocy, and secondhand embarrassment won’t stop for 2.7 more years. That’s a long time. And it may persist even beyond that.
People often say, “Go volunteer,” but IMHO, volunteering for a good political cause and seeing it be wrecked or fail anyway can be more harmful mentally than not having volunteered in the first place. I’ve worked on political campaigns before and there was nothing as deflating as working 70-hour weeks and seeing your candidate get blown out in a landslide on Election Night anyway. (I’m not saying “don’t fight,” I’m just saying that fighting and losing can be more draining than not fighting.)
I’ve only found or known of two tricks, and would appreciate hearing any others.
1) Focus on what you have control over. I can’t control what Trump does in the idiotic war with Iran, but I can control how messy or neat my living room is. I can tidy up things. I can lose weight. I can eat healthy. I can swim, jog, play soccer, cut back on expenses. All of those are things I have control over.
2) Keep track of good things. Right now, guinea worm disease is close to being eradicated. I have a very good (albeit rather low-paying) job. I live in a neighborhood that has dozens of nice shops and stores and things within walking distance. Type I diabetes may soon become treatable. Etc. etc. I try to keep a list of 30-40 good things posted on my computer to view frequently.
I guess for me, one thing is scale and the fact that boundaries are arbitrary.
Like if you live in Mississippi, it is always going to be a hellhole politically within the confines of that state. Within the US as a whole, about half of the country want to live in a corrupt, white nationalist dictatorship and that is extremely demoralizing. validating the pain and disappointment a lot of us have living here is important.
But there are lots of blue states where a person can live where state law will try to protect people from the federal government when the voters elect evil people to federal office. Also a person can leave the country and move somewhere where the public are more civilized and humane.
Knowing I have that choice to move helps (to move between cities, states or countries), the same way that someone who is miserable living in Mississippi knows they can move to a place like New York. It won’t be perfect, but the people there are more civilized which will make life less stressful.
Avoid news about the USA as much as possible to avoid getting too depressed, and
Hope and pray that somehow sanity will prevail before 2028. The best hope is an overwhelming Democratic victory in November, despite all the incredible gerrymandering and flood of Republican campaign money.
Perspective. This is not the worst of all possible times, nor (necessarily) is the worst of all possible times coming any time soon. This attitude is the strongest possible weapon against despair, but it does require one not to doom-scroll through life.
Plus, age. I expect to live, if I’m reasonably lucky, 10 to 14 more years, the higher of which would put me at 90. That really isn’t very long, in the scheme of things. I’ve been retired for 11 years already.
Plus, no offspring to worry about. There is really only one person that I care deeply about, my husband, who has the option to go back to Japan if he outlives me (which, being Japanese, I expect he will).
I lean into the anger when it comes to our current politics. Nothing violent but instead of getting depressed I get pissed off. I am careful not to rant-and-rave. I keep my cool around MAGA and their ilk but if they want to have that discussion I’ll probably engage with them (politely as can be managed).
I can’t let myself succumb to depression over this. All too easy to do. The US is definitely getting worse but, honestly, I am hard pressed to think of places that are really getting better.
Conservatism is running rampant. The whole planet is worse for it.
I rarely watch or read national news these days. I do enough to stay informed, but I don’t binge-watch the news the way that I used to.
I make sure to give myself unplugging breaks when I feel that I need them: often, it means listening to relaxing music and meditating.
I focus on what I can control, as far as making life better for myself and those with whom I’m close: conversations, helping out when I can, and getting together to play games.
Set defined times in which I let myself check the news, generally none after 8-9pm (though I often break this incidentally given the forums I moderate!).
Cut off conversations (both IRL and online) when I realize that I’m in a feedback loop of negativity. This is a big one, you start talking about something tangentially related, then directly related, and then you spend hours talking about it and more stewing about it after.
Do enough support to feel good about myself, but within the reasonable limits of my time, energy and money.
Occasionally when it’s real bad, buy a spare box of ammunition. But that’s very rare, and almost certainly futile in even the short-ish term. Thankfully, it’s not like it’s going to go bad and it’s easy to store.
Various video games - violent and calm depending on my mood. Sometimes (fury) by blowing off heads. Sometimes (depressed) by calmly gathering, farming, or grinding achievements - short, immediate or at least quantifiable improvements and accomplishments.
Cooking good food, though I’ve had to be a lot more careful about weight gain as a result, now that I’m back below my Covid gain and trying to get lower.
I have a handful of current political topics that I’ve decided I’m not going to follow. I don’t go looking for information about them. I don’t click on posts about them. I don’t read the news about them. Other than running across something about them as part of a bigger thread or catching a blurb on the news about them, I’m pretty ignorant WRT these topics.
I know I don’t follow politics as closely as the average doper, but I also know I follow them a lot closer than the average American citizen and even that can get exhausting.
This which isn’t much. I donate to a local food bank that largely supports the undocumented community in my town. It’s honestly not much but it’s something.
The United States will never recover. The damage to our political infrastructure is severe and ongoing, as is the damage to our international reputation and the network of alliances we’d built over the last two centuries. Our wealth is being siphoned off and sucked dry by the parasite and his friends.
It’s happening at a bad time for the species as a whole, as in a great many ways the world had been looking towards the United States for leadership and/or the clout to implement various measures that might bring our collective consumption and despoiling behaviors into some semblance of sustainability, not to mention serving as at least something of a bulwark against totalitarianism. It’s not obvious whether Europe or some other political entity can step up and fill these roles, or that they can resist being carved up by the combo of Russia, the US, and China.
But to end on a cheerful note, I think it is inevitable that somewhere a species composed of individually sentient yet social creatures will live cooperatively and reap the benefits of shared efforts and shared results, fulfilling the widely shared promises of a people living in accordance with the vision of peace and culture and freedom. Maybe not on this planet, but somewhere.
People watch/read too much news. Watching the news seems noble, like it’s a duty, like you have to do it to keep on top of things and be a good citizen and resist. But… it takes a toll on you. The amount of time you spend thinking about how shitty the situation we’re in has a real psychological price.
I’m not saying ignore the news entirely or not be informed. But you can be informed on a small, condensed amount of high quality news without doomscrolling and without ruminating or sharing in people’s dread. Exposure can fool you into thinking it’s engagement. Take real action on this. Set timers. Uninstall apps that drive you towards this behavior. Unsubscribe from forums that suck you in with this. “I should do this less” is probably not going to work. Actually acting may.
Cut down your news intake to the minimum, cut down on social media or message board politics threads that dissect or argue about it. Evaluate whether talking to other people about the topic is helpful commiseration or more exposure that keeps you miserable. Sharing a burden with someone who understands can be genuinely helpful, but there’s a crossover point where it can be mutually reinforced rumination.
Tune out as much as you can while still keeping informed about the world and enough to be a good citizen (vote, go to protests, etc). But only as much as you need. Because the more time you spend on it every day the more miserable you’re going to be. You don’t have a duty to make yourself miserable.
Play games and read books to keep my mind occupied. Be glad I have no children. Hope for a painless death relatively soon. Evil may have won forever, but I won’t be there for it to torment.
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