Trump Fatigue

Trump, putting himself to sleep.

He is exhausting.

By design.

Trump creates chaos in everything he does, in everything he says; in tweets, at his rallies, his responses to bad news. Chaos is where he lives, where he breathes, where he thrives. He lies, he struts, he frets his hour upon the stage, full of sound and fury…

…signifying nothing.

And that’s the way he likes it. He likes being a human headache, a whirlwind of contradictory ideas, saying one, and then the opposite, always ready to drop that for whatever advantage he can get. And then denying he’d ever said anything else. And his supporters constant noise cheering him, praising everything he does, egging him on and begging for more. So tiring. And what are you going to do? After a while you stop trying to figure out what to do and just throw up your hands.

It just wears you out, starts to numb you; the next insane thing tops the last insane thing which topped the one before that. It’s just… exhausting.

By design. It is in that exhaustion Trump and his enablers do their best work. To them chaos and exhaustion means people aren’t paying close attention, it their version of the magician’s distraction, the coin palm while waving the other hand in your face. But even during this slight-of-hand we need to pay attention, close attention.

But the madness brings tiredness, numbness, brings depression, anxiety, anger overload, brings Trump fatigue.

How can you fight when you’re too tired to keep caring? This is part of what Trump is after; the tired-of-it-all, giving up, screw-them-all exhaustion. How do you deal with it?

Take a break. Stop hitting refresh on the news sites, stop doom scrolling on Twitter and Facebook, stop arguing with trolls, old high friends and family members. Shut it down. Turn off the phone, close the laptop. Talk to someone about something besides the election or covid, take a walk, get out and get away. For your own sanity.

Take care of yourself, you don’t want to break down in the final days of the most important election of your life, right? If you have early voting, try to do it now, or when your ballot comes, fill it out and get it back right away. Believe me, once you had that ballot in (and track it to make sure it’s been received) you’ll feel a lot better.

Take care of yourself and your mental health, then get back into it.

Because it ain’t over.