It's Been A Minute

 

I’ve been trying to figure out whether I want to keep using this blog as an outlet. Do I want to share intimate thoughts on a web browser? Would I be better off journaling or keeping them with a therapist?

Reflecting on the news, I feel like every story is a bit more upsetting…and exhausting. Nothing ever really sticks, and we follow one thread until we know it’s still a problem but don’t want to talk about it anymore. Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing war is still the default first page, but there’s also a Covid tracker and the latest daily top story.

Lately, they’ve all been bad. The Supreme Court planning on making abortion illegal. Another mass shooting taking the lives of over 20 children. A full-blown insurrectionist becoming the Republican nominee for PA Governor.

 

And then there are all the little things that we’re supposed to care about but are really so dumb. The cyrpto crash. Elon Musk buying Twitter because he’s upset that someone mocking a transwoman was asked to take down a tweet. Rising gas prices and a baby formula shortage that hurt real people but are clearly being weaponized for political gain.

I’ve been thinking about the monologue from Bo Burnham’s Inside where he asks:

“Is it necessary that every single person on this planet expresses every single opinion that they have on every single thing that occurs all at the same time?... can anyone shut the f**k up?”

And I wonder if I should follow that advice.

I’m pretty concerned about this country and its future for a few reasons. One is we’re still experiencing some cultural backlash from the social progress of the Obama years. Two, Republicans are pretty intent on not respecting any rule of law in elections. Three, I think the last two years are going to be more damaging for apathy than any prior.

I don’t think it can be overstated how damaging Joe Manchin has been to the Democratic Party. A possible defense for him would be that he has to worry about reelection in 2024 and he’s in a +40 Republican state, so good luck getting a different Democrat in there. But if that’s his chief concern and he wants to hold up every single piece of significant legislation that could help people, then he’s not really in this for the right reasons.

I know a lot of people aren’t fans of the Democratic Party, but its failures are so glaring because fascism really was on the ballot in 2020. I don’t think there’s another word more appropriate to describe the Republican Party in the Trump era. You had a candidate promising to restore “law and order,” falsely claiming he won states he didn’t, using violence as a fear tactic to hold on to power.

I recognize how high the stakes would be if Trump were to run again in 2024, but I fear that Dems have not given voters much in the time that they’ve controlled the House, Senate, and Presidency. I was optimistic about what Bidenomics might look like following the passage of the Stimulus. As Giridharadas points out in Winner Takes All, it has been a LONG time since the Democrats had a President promoting a full-throated defense of government with the same fervor Republicans rail against it.

But progress has stalled and there’s this deep sense of malaise. You can feel it.

I would still prefer this to the daily chaos of the Trump years, but it’s getting harder to make the case for what ‘normal’ is supposed to look like.