Being political in the age of Trump
Being political in the age of Trump
In 1995–97 I went through both individual and group therapy to deal with sexual abuse as a child and teenager. I focused heavily on this…
In 1995–97 I went through both individual and group therapy to deal with sexual abuse as a child and teenager. I focused heavily on this trauma to help move past it. At the same time, I was also severely depressed and morbidly obese. All of these were inexorably linked. I read books by Geneen Roth, specifically When Food is Love, Breaking Free from Emotional Eating, and Feeding the Hungry Heart. I read to try and understand what I was going through, to understand why I was like I was, to get support from others who went through the same experiences and to try, and change myself and my behaviors. I felt that if I understood what was going on, if I learnt enough, I wouldn’t be broken any more.
I saw everything in my life through the lens of Rape Survivor. I volunteered at a Woman’s Shelter for victims of Domestic Violence. I filled out workbooks and gave them to my family. Everything in my life related to this identity. It was like when you fall in love or breakup, everything you experience makes you think of your lover, except without all the fun sex. I was eventually able to move past the label as my main identity, but it took a lot of work and a lot of time to integrate that part of me into the whole instead of having it occupy my world. A lot of work.
With the election of Donald Trump, I cannot help but see everything under the lens of politics. His campaign made the political extremely personal and I felt violated all over again by his treatment of women, and his subsequent denial of his horrible treatment of women. I seriously thought that after the leaked tape and the ensuing flood of accusations that he was done for. I thought that was the final straw that broke the camel’s back. Boy howdy was I wrong.
Every news item I read, or interesting video has a political bent. Just as when I was going through therapy before, I am reading voraciously. I am reading article after article after article trying to figure out how this disaster happened, how to fight of the rise of fascism in the USA, and how to prevent further harm if possible. It’s overwhelming, depressing, and I was sharing the shit out of everything on my FB feed.
I was making so many political posts that frankly I was bumming a lot of people out. So, I made an opt-in politics filter and roughly 10% of my friends have opted-in thus far. I expect that to grow, but for the people who aren’t subscribed, they will see more photos of my life as I continue my #365gratefulproject and other things I find interesting and worthy of sharing.
But these days everything is political and nothing is normal. What do I classify as political in that list? Only stuff about Donald Trump, and his cabinet that can only be described as his team of deplorables? Is #BlackLivesMatter political, is #NoDAPL political? Yes indeed, but I’m not filtering them as they’re part of a bigger picture that everyone needs to see.
We have a limited amount of time to stop the rise of fascism in the United States of America. Historians are raising alarm bells, red lights are flashing, and we need to be vigilant and proactive. The political lens isn’t going away any time soon, there’s going to be a lot of work ahead of us, and it’s going to be hard. But the alternative is unthinkable.