I feel you. But at the same time, I’m also afraid that as they dismantle the government, the brain drain from departing/retiring federal workers and knowledge about how the parts of government (for example the NIH or the NOAA/NWS) function on the day to day (including things like historical climate data) will be lost in the chaos. I’m not paying attention now, because I think it will be more important to pay attention in a month. I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle it then either, but I don’t want some of what we do have to be lost forever because some assholes didn’t like it, and the rest of us thought they deserved it. Maybe they do deserve it, but the rest of us don’t deserve to lose it forever either.

Maybe we need a third option than just two.

Precisely. My only fear is the people who need the biggest punch in the face won’t get it. Or will be too stupid to understand it.

To be fair, a majority of Americans chose not-Trump for 3 elections. And that’s ignoring the fact that voters in solid blue states just didn’t show up to vote because their votes don’t matter. If we lived in a Democracy and not a Democratic Republic, I’m confident he would have lost the plurality as well.

But also, half the country didn’t ask for this. Even in solid red states like the one I live in, a third of us didn’t ask for this bullshit.

What I’m tired of is the media sanewashing domestic terrorists and centrists giving the right a free pass by not paying attention and assuming “both sides” any time literally anything happens.

It still mattered. Republicans won on federal level (mainly due to a successful social media campaign) but there were also some good wins for Democrats on local levels.

Highly recommend “On Tyranny” book by Timothy Snyder.

Same same. Watch the pbs news hour headlines and if they’re about trump I turn it off immediately. As soon as topic switches to domestic politics I’m out. Same with Lemmy feed, adding musk, trump, RFK, and other words to my block list. It’s not that I don’t care - I do care deeply - but it’s ruining my mental health. As long as the majority of voters in this country want it my reading about the constant fucking clown show will change nothing.

Step one: get people tired of following political news by over saturating.

Step two: politicize everything.

I remember watching my roommate, in the early 90s, and he was absolutely GLUED to some news outlet - pretty sure it was local news. I kind of laughed as I walked through the room. He followed me into kitchen - it had switched to the commercial break - and he was kind of wound up a bit for whatever reason. He demanded to know what was so funny. I chuckled and said “none of this is real news”. He huffed and puffed a bit and so I said I’d watch it with him and explain what I meant and that he should not really take offense - the mirth was not really aimed at him, but the situation. He was game for whatever reason.

And the rest of the show was the usual filler you can write off right away as not news: sports scores, local incidents of crime, celebrity gossip, the direction of the Dow. There was nothing that was going to have any impact whatsoever on either of us, with the possible exception of the weather, I suppose.

And at this point, I had not even read Chomsky, so I probably had less grounding on this.

Anyway, I don’t think it’s gotten any better. It’s always been bad, but I think algorithms can make it far, far worse.

I don’t know about others, but I hope maybe it is similar with others.

I stopped watching 24/7 channels, I no longer trust CNN. Washington Post and LA Times showed their colors during the election, showing exactly that the owners purchased them to manipulate readers’ opinion.

I since then set up recurring donations to ProPublica, local NPR station, I also found a local news paper that still seems to do local journalism. The rest I intend to rely on Lemmy and Reddit.

I stopped caring what trump is saying (he always lies) and instead intend to care about what he does. There are things that are out of my control, but intend to support any way I can politicians, judges, public employees and others that will fight him. And when it comes time to protest I intend to do my part.

I just don’t want to waste my energy on pointless BS that 24/7 news media was doing 2017-2020. If trump says he intends to take over Greenland why should I rile up about it and how can I change anything. It is likely a BS anyway to tire us up.

Also I highly recommend On Freedom: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder. This book was published in 2017 when he started his first term and outlines what things we should watch for and not let him do if we still want to have a democracy.

And that’s how Putin stays in power. 😞

The information environment that has been cultivated in the US was always leading here. The effect the internet had on news media didn’t help. For every politically engaged person on whatever side there are 20 low information voters voting based on general vibes and gut instinct and little else. And their instincts suck.

I’m listening to the audiobook “It Came From Something Awful” and at one point, when referencing Gen X, and how SICK they/we were of seeing everything they/we tried to cultivate being colonized by corporate America and then sold back to them embodied Cobain’s “oh well, whatever, nevermind…”

I highly recommend the book, by the way…makes for a good retrospective on how we got to where we are, and it’s not falling into the stupid generational warfare horseshit that lays the blame for this at the feet of boomers (and Gen X or the Greatest Generation). At least no so far, anyway - I’m not done yet.

Customary link: https://youtu.be/viaTT859Yk0?si=D6iY25ZZdpl3wTOG

Haha. Bud, I haven’t had cable TV since 2000

I don’t want to repeat 2016. The media goes hyperbolic over every stupid speech or tweet this man makes. 90% of it doesn’t get done. The 10% that does… Will suck. And I can’t do anything about that at this point, enough of the country voted for him because of inflation that he got into to power because they don’t understand how government and inflation works.

I’m not going to raise my blood pressure over news that is just outrage porn this time. Shit is going to get worse, and I can’t do anything about it as a federal worker other than do my job and wait it out.

Then try to help rebuild the institution I work for after it is hollowed out by the incompetent political appointees made my the incoming admin once the political pendulum swing again in on the axis of low information capricious swing voters in this country.