It blows my mind how easily people are swayed and how ByteDance is playing everyone like a fiddle. I need to walk into the ocean because this life ain't for me.
After being a non-stop news and politics junkie the last 15+ years, I've gone beyond cold turkey.
I stopped reading all political, U.S., and even world news the day after the election. Zero. Dropped reddit politics. I don't know who are Trump's cabinet picks. I assume Hulk Hogan and Kid Rock will be on the cabinet, but I don't know and don't care.
On Nov 7 when I saw that not only did Trump win, but he won decisively, and I saw this is what the country wants, I decided that since I can't get rid of Trump's bullshit, I actually have full power to keep that bullshit from entering my personal reality. Whatever daily outrage and anger I would have felt since Nov 7, I don't have. My mind is relatively clear, and --surprise, surprise-- my life is unaffected.
I plan to keep this up for 4 years. I assume at some point, I'll go to get a flu shot and be told vaccines are illegal. And if I notice suddenly a bunch of ads for iodine pills, I'll withdraw as much cash I can and get canned food and water and gasoline. I'll deal with it then.
And in 2 years and 4 years I will go to the voting booth. But I'm powerless until then, except for what I allow into my life.
I'm debating trying to do this. I've seen it recommended by other people who I think are smart. Honestly, I tuned out most of the 2010s after being a political news junkie in the 2000s, and it was probably good for me. I couldn't sleep or concentrate on work for a couple days after this election.
> And in 2 years and 4 years I will go to the voting booth. But I'm powerless until then
What's really depressing is that I'm already happy with my representation in congress, and they'll probably win again comfortably in 2026 and 2028, but they're powerless too.
I've wanted to do this since 2016. It was November of 2015 when I first thought, "How long could I go not knowing if Hillary won or lost?" Eight years later, I've put it into effect, and my mind is so much clearer for it.
My whole life I've believed that "it's important to be informed." I now challenge that. I mean: yes, obviously before the next election I will read up on the candidates and propositions. But apart from that, me being informed has zero effect on the world.
Another forum that I frequent is bogleheads.org (about investing and personal finance), and one of the rules is that discussing politics and proposed legislation is off-limits. But obviously when a new law (e.g. on taxes) is actually passed then discussion of how we're personally affected becomes appropriate and necessary.
That might be a good model for generally striking an appropriate balance: be informed about new major legislation (or executive orders, court decisions, etc.) when they happen, but skip all the day-to-day drama about who said what on the House or Senate floor, or in an interview, or on X in between such things. I've seen it suggested many times that the Wikipedia current events portal is all that one should look at, and it would probably accomplish this.
As I had the same feeling as you, I subscribed to a quarterly news magazine called delayed gratification. I feel it's a good balance between keeping up-to-date, while not letting the news interfere with my daily life and emotions.
Even 5 seconds of Trump is enough to cause rage. I'm powerless to change what he says and does, but I'm only empowered to keep it away from me.
My friend's house (and entire town) burned down, so I'm following that news. But even 2 minutes of reading Trump + Republicans saying the fires happened because the LAPD chief is a gay woman, and I had enough for the month.
I think reducing the amount of news one consumes at least slightly improves things. Unfortunately, my wife and many of my loved ones are targets of Trump and his minions, so I can't totally tune things out, but consuming less news media at least makes for less internalization.
I’ll challenge you: what action are you and your wife+family going to be taking based on the news? If that approximates zero, then you are only just stressing yourself.
It depends on who you are. If you're a straight white guy then completely zoning out might be the right answer. If you are an immigrant then knowing that ICE is raiding Chicago on Tuesday is very important information.
I also feel the concern over who is President is largely overrated. It’s as perverse as deeply worrying about who the next CEO of one’s employer will be — even they aren’t that concerned!
Frankly, we should be more concerned about school board and sheriff elections but society is too broken for that to happen or be meaningful.
People act like they know Congressional/Presidental candidates as well as their own relatives yet they cant even name the local office candidates.
