I keep struggling to write anything about the present state of the US, but it seems important to, so it’s blocking me writing anything about anything else. The block is something like: once I make A Claim, then I have to Substantiate It, and each of these would take hours to do well and I don’t have that kind of time or energy.

So, to unblock myself, I’m just going to throw these out there:

• There are no cartoon villains. People who do bad things have reasons. These reasons are usually not as dumb as “I want to get rich” (though sometimes they are)
• The News wants you to keep reading and clicking. They don’t care if they work you into a state of terrified aggression every day, as long as they get their clicks.
• Those in power want you to feel scared, demoralized, and pwned. Some of their actions are purely symbolic, aimed at achieving this
  • therefore, when you hear about a new “Trump administration plan”, probably just ignore it, as the reality will be nothing like what they claim.
• Still, this all sucks.
• The left went partially off course in the culture wars, aiming for symbolic victories and feeling smart/righteous rather than improving the world.
• The right, ascendant, actually has a chance to undo some of these smug missteps. They will spend 5% of their time doing smart things like reinstating plastic straws, and that will be good. They will then veer wildly off course themselves, “owning the libs” rather than improving the world.
• You don’t have to pay attention to any of this. It’s better if you don’t.
• You should absolutely stay friends with your friends who happened to vote for the wrong guy. Consider it sports teams, not holy wars.
  • I used to advocate the opposite of this. I was wrong. It doesn’t help, it makes you feel worse, and really almost anything that severs human connection should be viewed with much skepticism
• Most of this, you can’t do anything about. Or, you can’t do much about without radically changing your life. I guess you can do a little (donate money! call your congresspeople!) with a little, uncertain payoff, if you want to. I’m not going to stop you. But it’s ok to round that to zero if that’s how you’re inclined, I think.
  • I used to say the opposite of this. I’m not sure if I was right or wrong. But I wasted a lot of effort without much benefit, I think.
• Be careful how much of your mental space this takes up. Be careful of falling for conspiracy theories or things that are not quite true because they happen to match up with a story you like.