On Political Exhaustion

We're living in hard, traumatic times and we're fighting a long, tiring fight.

A quick appeal: if you find this article or any of my work important to you, your understanding, or your wellbeing, consider becoming a subscriber. It keeps this independent media venture going and growing. Thank you for your support. In the midst of all this mess, the kind words, the supportive emails, the expressions of what this has all meant to, keeps me going. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

In April of 2003 I hit a wall.

The buildup to the illegal and brutal invasion of Iraq had lasted months. The airwaves were filled with obviously misleading and jingoistic reports. You could barely turn on the radio for a DJ talking between songs about going after Saddam Hussein for what he’d “done” on September 11th. Conversations with family members were punctuated with nationalistic and bloodthirsty rhetoric. It didn’t matter if you read the “leftist” New York Times or tuned into MSNBC. It was all-encompassing. And exhausting.

When I wasn’t reeling in horror, I spent those months protesting. Writing feverish essays and poems and anything I could imagine that might make a difference. I marched. I joined sit-ins. I linked arms with everyone I could find who recognized just how horrific the entire situation was. I thought if we could just say the right thing, stage the right rally, if enough people could come together and say no, we will not let this happen, then the world itself would move and maybe one of the worst and bloodiest blunders of modern history could be avoided.

The protest movement was one of the largest the world had ever seen. And it still failed to prevent what was coming, what the market wanted, what the military-industrial complex needed.

A few weeks after the initial volleys, I fell into a deep depression. The protest movement had given me purpose. Community. And with the bombs falling on Baghdad and the country lost in war-lust, I found it hard to drag myself out of bed. I was lucky to have a mentor who had been part of the counterculture in the 1960’s, when he was a student fighting for civil rights, free speech, and an end to the war in Vietnam. Oftentimes he spoke, in his lectures and speeches, about the period existing just on the edge of a social revolution, and then, in moments of extreme candor, he’d admit the revolution had failed.

His work protesting the Iraq War represented over four decades of political involvement. What he said about that work has stuck with me for years now. “When you choose to care you are often choosing heartbreak.”

And in this, he was right.

---

Recently I’ve been working with groups and individuals who live in so-called “Red States” where Republicans legislatures have run roughshod. For decades these people have held the line as public education and the rights of women, people of color, the LGBTQ community, and the poor have been attacked. In the last few years, something has shifted as attacks have gotten worse, more concentrated, and more brazen.

The beginning of this new chapter can be traced back to Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign for the presidency. Something that had been in the body politic for a long time ramped up and then went into overdrive. After he won the office, a lot of the donors and groups they had squared off against for a long time kicked into a different gear. Everywhere they looked, everywhere they turned, a new threat and a new battlefield emerged. And then, the legislatures passed some of the most aggressive and oppressive bills imaginable.

Conversations with these parties fall along predictable lines. The assault - carried out by the same wealthy donors who have funded one attack on democracy after another - has taken its toll. Some feel hopeless. Others shell-shocked. What they have experienced is literal trauma. The world, as they knew it, has been turned upside down. The things they believe in passionately have been seemingly devalued and left in tatters. While some maintain hope that a new day will arrive and the damage will be undone, some, in their hardest moments, fear it might never happen. It might just get worse.

I have to imagine, if you are reading this, you’ve felt something similar.

I have no idea how long you’ve followed politics. Perhaps you’ve been in the struggle for decades now. Maybe 2016 woke something inside you as you realized this country was different from what you might have been taught. Chances are you’ve lived these past few years with a sickening feeling. You’ve been tossed from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other.

And no doubt you’re tired.

This is a message to say that you are seen. What you feel is completely natural. It’s to be expected. The maelstrom of the last few years has left us all bruised and changed. God knows I’ve changed. I’ve aged. Hardened in some ways, softened in others. And as I look back on this fight, I feel so many things.

I’m angry.

I’m tired.

I’m frightened.

And I’m hopeful and grateful.

There’s a period in the summer known as the Dog Days. It’s the hottest stretch, but it’s also at a moment when we’re all exhausted by the heat and the onslaught of the summer. In heatwaves, like the one I experienced here recently, you have weeks at a time where you almost can’t imagine life outside of the cruel heat. The world is baked and even going outside seems like an oppressive joke.

Undoubtedly there’s a metaphor there for these political times. Yes, we’re seeing Donald Trump get mercifully brought in for his crimes, but we’re also plagued with the suspicion that nobody has particularly wanted to do this and he forced the hand of justice. Meanwhile, those same donors are walking scot-free. Even seeing Proud Boys and Oath Keepers get their justice feels hollow.

It doesn’t help that we are entering what looks to be one of the most detestable and sickening primary seasons in modern history. If the first GOP debate was any indication, it’s going to be an awful slog. Trump will either show up and make it worse or his absence will result in a contest to see who can fill his shoes, creating a race to the bottom. Then, whatever happens heading into the general, and whatever 2024 cooks up to throw our way, it’s going to be utterly miserable.

I want to say you’re not alone in feeling it.

But I also want to assure you there are better days to come. And better ways to approach this. Better ways to live for your own well-being and better ways to fight back.

---

As I’ve spoken about often, our media and political systems are wired for self-destruction. Unfettered capitalism has created an environment where anything that tests or destroys is ripe for profit. Meanwhile, our consumer culture is explicitly programmed to keep us feeling isolated, terrified, inadequate, and cycling through trauma states.

Donald Trump and the authoritarian movement he serves as a figurehead for are terrific motivators in this way. Media companies, publications, and individual entrepreneurs are making incredible gains because Trump’s dysfunction and the threat this movement embodies are proven winners in this cycle. There’s no end to news stories and priming moments. Trump said this crazy thing. Trump was indicted. Trump had a mugshot. In Tennessee or Kentucky the legislature passed a bill to limit voting rights or unnecessarily target trans people. It goes and it goes and it goes.

Unfortunately, the destruction they wreak is serious. And it means you do need to care. To acquiesce at this point is to sacrifice your neighbors, your loved ones, your community, and ultimately yourself and this planet. This is serious stuff that requires serious attention.

The hubbub around it? Not as much.

It is no coincidence that, with the rise of Trump, came the rise of an ecosystem that depended on Trump. That includes a whole spate of podcasts, streamers, vloggers, personalities, and media. That’s on all sides, from the MAGA World to the New Right to the #Resistance to the Dirtbag Left. The internet and social media have created cyclical relationships of taking events and moments and then spiraling out like so many ripples in a pond, creating offshoots of offshoots and opportunities for profit and brand building.

To be troubled by Trump and the Right is often synonymous with participating in a capitalist ecosystem. Participating on social media, reposting posts, listening to podcasts, watching videos, all of it, can keep you informed and be illuminating, but it can also, if you’re not careful, wire you into a worsening trauma cycle designed to keep you frayed. One of the things I often warn about when advising people and groups is to avoid what I call “light prophets.” Personalities, podcasts, and media operations that operate like cult leaders constantly predicting the end of the world and then backing away from the prediction.

“The walls are closing in on Trump now…”

“It’s Mueller Time!”

So on and so forth.

It’s hard to make decisions about what you consume and who you listen to in times like these, but with a little discernment and introspection, you can sometimes pinpoint just how much your emotional system is being hijacked in a time where, quite frankly, your emotional system is already hijacked by an authoritarian movement and a worsening political environment.

It can wear you out rather quickly because this rough situation is tiring enough, but to have that hypercapitalistic motivator constantly churning and pushing can fry your circuits.

Similarly, it can be isolating. What we need to do to defeat this in the long run is to counteract the atomization of neoliberalism by rebuilding our communities and our communal ties. Within the social media bubble, within the podcast and streaming bubbles, there are captured “communities” which can sometimes feel like real communities, and sometimes often are (I submit to you The Muckrake Podcast, which has built up a support system these last few years), but often the point of it all is to create continual profit centers rather than healthy and lasting groups.

It is necessary to take inventory of who and what you are supporting and why. Because there is a need for information, a need for organization, and a need for belonging. But there is also a need to avoid grifters, manipulators, and the like. We need to find places online that can inform while making it possible to take that information and spark and transfer it into the offline world.

Victories offline are also more sustaining. To see others who are in the fight, to look beyond online handles and realize the numbers associated with reposts and likes are shallow and often meaningless, and instead see there are others in your towns and states, where you have often felt alone, is reaffirming and life-giving. Social media is a tool like any other, and can be used to build and for good. But the artifice of the system hides that that tool can be all encompassing and keep us from the avenues that actually cement social change.

But also, you have to take care of yourself. Defining your identity based on political action is a tricky game. In 2003, I hinged a lot of my self-worth on whether I could stop a new global war backed by corporations and empire. Those odds aren’t great. Instead, decades later, I’ve come to realize my participation in the anti-war movement was successful for other reasons. I joined a community. I met people who have since inspired me to keep fighting and to see the best in places where I only saw the worst. It wasn’t a moral victory. It was a foundation for a lasting struggle. Preparation even for what has come.

Choosing to care is choosing to have your heart broken. I believe this to be true. But it is also choosing to see the world through eyes that can still marvel. See what it is that you are fighting for. What beauty deserves protection. Defining ourselves in opposition, be it to Trump or the GOP or this authoritarian death machine, only gets us so far. We must protect what needs protected while we choose to build something better, something that reflects the beauty of a world we love and a world we choose to see.

Heartbreak happens. And it takes its toll.

But it’s worth it. So, so worth it.