You know what I’d really like to do right now? Escape into video games. I’m too depressed to really want to do anything else.
I don’t want to think about this election — the national one — much less write about it. Who wants to think about all the horrible things Trump will do if he wins? I don’t. I’d rather log onto my favorite computer game and get lost in that. Why grow gray hairs worrying about something I don’t have any control over?
Being an editor of a news and opinion blog right now is not very enjoyable. Especially one that is progressive and grassrootie like the Rag. I mean, we’re supposed to be able to give voice and expression to our “progressive” values and perspectives on all that’s relevant locally. One of the strengths of the Rag is its focus on local, local news and events and people and restaurants — our readers really appreciate that.
Yet, when we stray into more national issues and news, our readers drop off. Since we began trying to focus our posts this week on the election, especially on the consequences of what will happen if Trump is elected or how bad a person he is (he wishes he had generals “like Hitler”), our readership has dropped noticeably. There’s less hits to our posts, less comments by readers.
We even lost one person who has commented quite often on local issues and politicians recently but who turned out to write a comment that was a full-throated endorsement of Trump and a sexist and racist rant on Kamala. Imagine, someone who we have agreed with a number of times, ends up liking the guy who wants to turn the military on the Democrats and other people he calls “enemies of the people” — people like me and the other Rag writers.
We’re facing the most consequential election of our lifetime, yet it’s tough to get my friends and family to think or talk about it. Or get Rag writers to write about it. Nobody wants to. Is this election denialism?
Is this what happens to modern humans? When faced with dire consequences, do we first simply deny it? Is it part of our defensive mechanism? Before we flee or fight, do we first deny?
This just adds to my depression.
I really don’t want to think about Trump rounding up millions of undocumented migrants. Or setting up detention camps. Or using the National Guard against people who object to whatever he does. Or going after Nancy Pelosi or Adam Schiff. Or using the military to arrest and jail Democrats. Or enacting Project 2025. Deleting the Department of Education.
Or worse. Destroying the Constitution. He’s vowed to do that.
Here it is –11 days out from election day and even though up to 30 million Americans have already voted, election day is significant. But Donald Trump will not concede he’ll support a “peaceful transition of power.” Eleven days out. He just called the January 6 insurrection a “peace” and “love” happening.
He’ll do something similar, no doubt.
Some say ‘misery loves company’ — but I disagree. When I’m miserable, when I’m depressed, I just want to be alone, play my video games. Stay in the house.
Why go out in public? Why be among my fellow Americans, half of whom want to put me in prison for being progressive? Or at least vote for the guy who wants to do that.
Isn’t it depressing to think that half of all Americans are ready to vote for the guy who admires Hitler? Or at least half the electorate, as many, many Americans don’t vote. I think it is. Half of the voting American public are ready to forget that 400,000 Americans died in World War II, many in the fight against fascism, and vote for someone who fits the textbook definition of being a fascist.
How could this happen in our country — the citadel of “democracy”?
Half of our fellow Americans who vote are ready to hand over our country to a dictator. It’s really much too late to ask ‘why?’ — We’re way beyond that.
There’s many factors and I don’t even want to think about them.
… Actually, now that I’ve written all this, I do feel slightly better. Perhaps if we talk and write about our fears and what causes our depression, we’re able to deal with what is forcing us this way.
Maybe.
A very big “Yes!” to escaping into video games, a good read, a walk on the beach, and anything else that restores personal equilibrium as we await results. A very big “No!” to the paralysis of anxiety over things we cannot control. We have work to do, especially here at home. If Gloria, Whitburn, and Elo-Rivera are re-elected, they will sink to new depths of grift and incompetence, and the OB Rag will be taking notes and gathering evidence. Think of the fun we’ll have, Editordude!
Probably the best analysis I’ve read all year is here:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/10/21/how-alarmed-should-we-be-if-trump-wins-again
“The space is that strange, and the stakes that high.”
It’s an election fatigue for myself. The noise of Trump for the past 8 years. I wasn’t this tuned to the political structure that’s emerged over that time. It’s not just the MAGA right. The left has become more left. Two extremes with a hole in the middle. That government is the problem solver, instead of individual choices/ individual responsibility.
I like being home. Love my place. My wife likes to go places. I’m not keen with it. But leaving, seeing other places, it takes me away, disconnecting for a short time, and I come back reaffirmed loving my place, my area. We are not that different. Same type problems, different areas. Boise, Austin, Seattle, Portland. Savannah, Georgia next year. 3-5 days. Find a plane fare. Find a hotel central to food and activity interests. Camping locally with friends also does that in a closer area. Find a reset.
PS. Take a breath. A new chapter starts in 11 days. We are more responsive to local issues. The comments #’s show that on various stories. Got a cold call last night from a youngster, asking me if they could count on my support for Elo-Rivera. I said absolutely……not. And a pause, before an obligatory thank you. LOL
Random thoughts: This country is very fragmented, which is much better than being very unifed. You can choose what state to live in that reflects your values. Be happy that you live in California rather than the South. National politics is overrated. A big reason that some people like Trump is because of the issue of guys who become girls playing girls sports. And rhe fact that Friend of Stormy Trump is the choice of the Christian Right shows that they are somewhat lost.
Kamala is running a campaign based on positivity. Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt on that. In a Democratic Republic, we have to accept the fact that the majority rules. Positive thinking is not going to win this election, but without it we are certainly doomed. It’s gonna be alright.
Not just Harris, the Democratic party is running a positive campaign. When you compare how the Republicans are behaving with attacks and lies and anything to win, with the spirit of the Democrats, there is no choice for a sane person. How could any person with a sense of morality ever consider voting for anyone but Harris.
Dear Editordude,
Your intelligent, well-informed writing and coverage of issues national and local have really helped me over the years. Thank you. I also appreciate your thoughtfulness, civility, and sense of humor, which is so refreshing these days.
Hang in there. As Joyce Vance says “We’re all in this together.”
Oh, and P.S. Go look at or get in the ocean for a break and a re-set.
Depression has a hold on me: https://youtu.be/UQIVHN-Ysik?si=dg7sln69wpksWhaH
Thanks everyone for the encouraging words … and music.
Don’t let news from outside of 92107 get you down! Resist negativity! Accentuate positivity!
Seriously, my world is my family and my neighborhood. All I can do to influence Sacramento and DC is to vote, then walk away from the politics unitl the next election and enjoy my limited tine on earth.
THE OB RAG may be in the doldrums but you must prevail. I’ll lose my mind if my only source of local news is The La Jolla Light and The Tribune. The OB RAG tackles tough issues. I don’t blame the editors/writers of those papers; they must chew leather to keep from ruining their teeth. Alden Global Capital, Chicago, a recognized “vulture hedge fund” bought the Light’s parent company, Union-Tribune in 2023. AGC sharply cut costs and gutted the newsrooms. The La Jolla Light suffered with significant staff cuts in the newsroom and the switch from a full color spread to cheaper partially grey printing. Atlantic Magazine wrote about Alden: with its predatory cost-cutting investment strategy, Alden can “operate its newspapers at a profit for years while turning out a steadily worse product, indifferent to the subscribers it’s alienating. It seems intent on destroying local journalism.” The October 24th front page news in The Light: cell tower proposal in Cliffridge Park, La Jolla public schools test results, UCSD enrollment numbers. Not one word about local election news. Not this week, not last week, not in previous months. Not one word about anything political. Sadly, The Light features real estate ads more than journalism.
Thanks Trudy G!
The post I put up on ‘Editordude’ a couple of hours ago is more of an answer to this (which I didn’t read as I was heading back out to stack more firewood) than to this one.
Having a local guitar player, with whom I’ve played music with at local jams for twenty years, decide I was ‘part of the devil worshippers’ who hate the Frat Boy Fascist was pretty disheartening, but the good that came out of it was the other musicians there didn’t care so I set up my 6-drum congas/bongos set and plugged in the Green Bullet mic and turned on the amp for my harmonicas, and we played hard-as-hell blues mixed with world beat/Santana sounds for an hour. The pizza & pub customers loved what we were doing.
Lifted my mood no doubt!
I’m back in the house now, getting towards full dark, and the dogs and I just walked down to grab mail at my gate and the air smells good and the sky is clear and the dogs sniffed their way down and back catching every scent of every critter that passed across the property today. They don’t give a damn about the stupid that humans do…as long as they are loved and have crunchies in their bowls while they live in the moment. And I have an old cd of my band Mt. Shasta Gravity playing at the Halloween Harvest party at the old firehouse in 1998 going on the stereo downstairs. Good times, good memories, and again music is lifting my mood.
I may even pull out my oldest computer, an HP with Windows XP, and plug it in for some Dune 2000. Haven’t played that game in ages!
sealintheSelkirks
What’s the temp at night these days/ nights, seal?
40s to low 50s in the day, upper 20s/low 30s at night. Some days it doesn’t get into the 50s…then it’ll zoom to 72’F! Very strange weather.
Ice Frisbees in the outside dog water pans most mornings, with ice melting and dripping off the roofs by 10am or so. Rain keeps being expected the last three days but it hasn’t since a ‘wetting down’ rain overnight on the 21st. Had a couple of overnight showers the week before, too, but again not really a drenching. Still kicking dust up a day afterwards, ya know? It’s so dry it just soaks right in. We are still in wildfire danger…
Not a single peak has any visible snow at all, and some within 15 miles of me are over 8,000 feet and completely bare. Used to be up riding the lifts by Nov 10th on my hill, and it’s a low-elevation (under 6000 ft) resort, but not anymore because the weather just doesn’t do what it always used to do.
The sun is mostly out every day after the fog/low clouds burns off…
Last winter my first snowfall here (which is 3800 feet lower than ski hill Chewelah Peak ) was January 9th of this year. No shit! Down to -22’F a couple days later, then it was raining on the thin snowpack across the property by the 20th. Never really snowed again, not in any amount worth mentioning. I don’t remember if I ever bothered to fire up the snowblower at all last winter. This will be the 4th winter straight having a La Nina since the El Nino has dissipated already.
I did wake up to rain very early this morning, but it wasn’t raining at midnight last night when I walked out to turn off the grow lights in the shop. Roofs are already dry at 10am so it didn’t rain all that much again. Haven’t even bothered to put my rack full of winter hats into the local pizza & pub yet, either, because it just isn’t cold enough. People don’t really buy them until the temperature drops and it starts snowing… It looks and feels like what mid-September used to be like, and it’s Halloween week with November starting in a few days. The bears aren’t even hibernating yet 40 air miles from the Canadian border! Global warming is very apparent here…
Enough of the weather report from the far north I guess. Good morning, all!
sealintheSelkirks
I’m feeling “better” today; Rag writers have responded and today we have 4 posts by our grassroots citizen journalists.
To quote Nicholas Kristof in today’s New York Times, ““Your [liberal/progressive] principles can’t be greater than the suffering of the people who will pay the price for a Donald Trump presidency.”
Well, at least we agree on something.