This has been the longest week ever. The tangerine tyrant has wasted no time rolling back Obama- and Bidden-era policies. He removed the cap on prescription drug prices, so now people will go back to paying hundreds or thousands of dollars for the critical medications they need.
He also pulled the US out of the World Health Organization, froze federal spending for everything except defense and ICE, and barred health officials from communicating with the public. All as Bird Flu (H5N1) has spread to humans in the US.
What could possibly go wrong.
Don the con has also begun purging “woke” and DEI items from whitehouse.gov and other government sites. References to the Tuskegee Airmen were removed along with mentions of The Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), a group of civilian woman pilots who flew noncombatant flights during WW 2.
More is sure to follow in the next 100 days.
Given the scope of everything that Trump has done in just a week, it’s overwhelming. But it needn’t be.
I haven’t been doom scrolling but have kept informed by following Aaron Parnas, Joy Reid, and others on BlueSky and Substack. But I refuse to turn on the corporate news or my local news affiliates as they helped create this mess by normalizing Trump.
This reminds me of a lecture I watched as part of a series on the nature of evil from The Great Courses.
It was entitled, “The Banality of Evil” and focused on a Nazi official who continued sending trains of Jewish people to the death camps even after it was clear the war was lost. When asked why, he responded, “He was just doing his job.” Not in the sense of the Nuremberg defense, but that he was so desensitized to what he was doing it was his default.
Much like the above Nazi official, the legacy media has become numb to Trump’s corruption, and worse has attempted to gas light us into believing what he and his administration are doing is normal.
It’s not.
In the lead up to the 2024 election, there was a lot of talk about the frog in the pot analogy for fascism and how by incrementally raising the temperature, the frog won’t notice it’s boiling until it’s too late.
But the insidious part about the banality is evil is it won’t matter how much they raise the temperature once we’ve become desensitized to things.
Be it reporters Joe Scarborough and Mike Brzezinski or tech bros going to Mar-A-Lago to kiss trump’s greasy ass, Target rolling back DEI initiatives, or Tik Tok pushing pro Trump propaganda, the rush to obey Trump in advance only shows signs of increasing. And more than ever we need to speak truth to power and call out the lies and utter bullshit of Trump et al.
The only way we’re going to get through the next four years is by not becoming numb to the daily chaos. So, stay informed, but don’t let it consume your life, find joy in the little things, and be there for those in need. Do what you can to make your corner of the world brighter.
To this end, I bought a crafting machine bundle that was on sale, and plan to make vinyl stickers and other goodies with it. First for myself and maybe later as a side hustle. I don’t know yet.
I also have a silkscreen T-shirt press that I bought years ago but never learned to use. Well, I plan to change that. I’ll let you know how that goes.
What are you doing to stay sane?
Till next week, stay safe and don’t let the bastards grind you down.
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