Let us be angry and afraid together

A couple days ago Melissa McEwan of Shakesville started her day of blogging by listing one thing in each category of corruption, malice, authoritarianism, and all of the above that the nasty guy had done just the day before. It doesn’t really matter what those items are. McEwan explains:

Any one of the above items would be a scandal in any other presidency. But Trump's indecency is so colossal, so unfathomable, so relentless that we barely have time to contemplate one horror before the next dozen appear, threatening to crush our capacity to even understand all that is wrong, no less effectively resist all of it.

There’s an important reason why this isn’t an ever mounting scandal. Members of the GOP like what the nasty guy is doing. Every one of them is also corrupt. American news media is controlled by conservative or corrupt people who also like what the nasty guy is doing.

But what I want to do, and will keep doing, is validating your feelings about how f***ed up all of this is. In an age of official and endemic gaslighting, the one thing I can do is tell you: You are right about how terrible s*** is. This is happening. And it monumentally sucks.

Let us be angry, and afraid, and whatever else we need to be together. Chiefly, let us not pretend that this isn't real.

We have a president who is very corrupt, and very cruel, and very dangerous. And sometimes the cost of shoving down our feelings about that just to survive is too great to bear, so we need to be able to take it out and examine it and stare at it.

It's okay to not feel like everything will be okay. Remember who you were before he came around. Remember who you are. Have your feelings about it.

When I am low, like I was after reading the news this morning, I remind myself: He can change a lot of things, but he cannot change me.