Here’s the big issue with this current president. It’s not him in and of himself (though that is terrible, indeed), but it’s what he represents; how many people are holding him up, either for personal reasons, ideology, or just the need to unthinkingly follow someone in authority.
His presidency also lays to rest the ‘gentleman’s agreement’ that all previous presidents have silently agreed to. What do I mean by that? I mean that there aren’t many specific laws in place to prevent the president from abusing his power (and, yes, I deliberatley chose ‘his’ because that’s what we’ve had so far). For past presidents, I do believe that most of them wanted what was best for America, even if I deeply disagree with their ideology. They did not do things soleley because they wanted to do them or for personal gain.
I should note that I’m talking mostly about the presidents I have experienced in my lifetime because I can’t know what prior presidents were really like.
Anyway.
I knew this president’s second term was going to be dangerous and terrible beacuse he had nothing to lose. Again, this was with the assumption that he would not wangle a third term someohow. Oh, and here’s yesterday’s post with more musing on this subject.
I want to focus on something else for a hot sec.
I’m so angry right now, I can’ barely stand it. The only way I can really tamp it down is by becoming numb. I feel incandescent with rage, and I want to make the world burn. I want all the assholes to get what’s coming to them rather than mumbling some inane platitudes about how we have to be better than that. Me doing the mumbling, I mean.
I don’t have it in me. To be polite or compassionate or kind, I mean. I just watched a video of a right-wing influencer (ugh, I hate that word) who came to Minnesota to agitate, cause a ruckus, and probably was hoping to stir people up. I had to laugh when I saw that he had a whopping TEN people supporting him. The local news spoke to one of them, and, yep. Young white dude, wouldn’t you know it, from Minnesota, but not the Twin Cities.
The influencer claimed he was stabbed, but there was no official report of that. I did see him in a car getting kicked, and I felt a quiet vicious satisfaction inside me. I will say I know that’s what he wanted to a certain extent, and I don’t believe in giving these assholes what they want. But the incandescently angry, “I’ve had enough” burning ball of hatred in my heart? That part of me was glad.
I do not like that part of me, but neither am I suprised it’s there. The right likes to claim victimhood and that they’ve been so put upon, you cannot be surprised when they lash out. I reject their premise that they have been put upon at all, but I agree that if you keep stepping on someone, you can’t be surprised if they eventually snap. A hurt entity is going to eventually fight back.
I try to be empathetic. I try to be compassionate. I try to look behind everything to see why people act/feel/think the way they do. Then, at some point, when that is not returned/taken advantage of/pushed away/turned on its head, the compassion just completely drains from me.
There is the angry, “Fuck you, go to hell” impulsive response that I have as the compassion drains. After that, though, I just feel numb. Yes, there’s the ball of anger in the corner of my heart, but for the most part, I’m just numbed over. My heart is breaking in a million pieces over and over again, so I have to rein it in whenever I can.
Unfortunately, regulating my emotions is really hard for me. My tuner is broken, meaning that I either feel too much or too little. Most of the time, I leave it at too much, but right now, I cannot handle that. It has to be too little because everything hurts so much.
For the first few years after my medical crisis, any time something happened that I did not like, I would say, “I did not come back from the death for this.” The most notable time was when Roe V. Wade was overturned.
*deep sigh*
It’s just so surreal. I messaged to one of my besties, “I live in an occupied state. It’s wild.” Which I am, and it very much is. Now. Full disclosure. I live in a suburb north of St. Paul that makes it unlikely I will be directly affected–as long as I stay in my neighborhood. If I go even five minutes out of my suburb, though, I am very much in red territory.
It’s really hard to keep taking the high road when the other side refuses to do so. I am tired of people ‘both siding’ it because for the most part, the majority of the damage being done is by the people on the right. Objective damage, I mean. None of that mealymouthed, “They’re going to irrevocably harm tradition” or any of that shit.
This may shock people but I’m a small l libertarian in that as long as what you’re (general you) doing doesn’t hurt someone else (and, again, I don’t mean hurt in a mealymouthed way, but objective hurt. Like took something away from someone else that wasn’t amorphous like ‘tradiition’. Yes, I’m bringing up tradition again because that’s something that is brought up often. Along with ‘but what about the children?’
Nope. Not gonna put up with that.
I have no patience. None. They are trying to take away my civil rights and the civil rights of other minorities, and I. Did. Not. Come. Back. From. The. Dead. For. This. More to the point, I don’t see any reason to give a shit about anything because nothing matters. One really bad thing about this administration is that it’s shown how much our system is built upon a house of cards. Pull out one card, and the whole thing collapses.
I’m done for now. I will probably write more about this tomorrow.