A month or so after the election
It's been almost a full month since I last wrote in this blog, still reeling from the presidential election.
Though I am not experiencing the full-on depression of that time, I'm still extremely anxious. With every bizarre Donald Trump cabinet appointee, I find myself cursing and wincing. I find myself constantly bombarded with news stories involving our president-elect that make me feel like someone is constantly jabbing me with a knitting needle: Russians hacking the election, Trump not attending security briefings, Ben Carson as secretary of HUD, Betsy DeVoss--a person who would love to chuck the entire public school system, as secretary of education, a secretary of state appointee (Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson) with business interests with Russia.
...and this is just scraping the surface.
For several weeks I'd wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning in a cold sweat with an overwhelming sense of despair.
The "bubble" concept: I may live in a bubble. I'm sure I live in a bubble, seeing as how I live in an upper middle-class (verging on upper class) suburb of Michigan's capital (and the largest public university in the state). It is a community largely populated by doctors, lawyers, and college professors, and though it does have an Asian population near 6 percent, Meridian Township is still by-and-large an enclave of liberal whites. As a whole, my county (Ingham) voted for Hillary Clinton by a 2-1 margin.
When we drove up to Tuscola County, seeing how the Trump signs outnumbered the Clinton signs by about 20-1 was the first inkling I had that Trump could win the election and it (almost) "burst my bubble." There was still a part of me that was in denial, but in the week leading up the election, punctuated by a desperate text message to my brother-in-law, I had a sense that Trump just might...gulp...win.
Well, on that note, I'm gonna wrap up this particular post. I hope to be back soon with a year-end wrap-up in which I discuss stuff like my favorite TV shows, music, and the few books I read.
Though I am not experiencing the full-on depression of that time, I'm still extremely anxious. With every bizarre Donald Trump cabinet appointee, I find myself cursing and wincing. I find myself constantly bombarded with news stories involving our president-elect that make me feel like someone is constantly jabbing me with a knitting needle: Russians hacking the election, Trump not attending security briefings, Ben Carson as secretary of HUD, Betsy DeVoss--a person who would love to chuck the entire public school system, as secretary of education, a secretary of state appointee (Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson) with business interests with Russia.
...and this is just scraping the surface.
For several weeks I'd wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning in a cold sweat with an overwhelming sense of despair.
The "bubble" concept: I may live in a bubble. I'm sure I live in a bubble, seeing as how I live in an upper middle-class (verging on upper class) suburb of Michigan's capital (and the largest public university in the state). It is a community largely populated by doctors, lawyers, and college professors, and though it does have an Asian population near 6 percent, Meridian Township is still by-and-large an enclave of liberal whites. As a whole, my county (Ingham) voted for Hillary Clinton by a 2-1 margin.
When we drove up to Tuscola County, seeing how the Trump signs outnumbered the Clinton signs by about 20-1 was the first inkling I had that Trump could win the election and it (almost) "burst my bubble." There was still a part of me that was in denial, but in the week leading up the election, punctuated by a desperate text message to my brother-in-law, I had a sense that Trump just might...gulp...win.
Well, on that note, I'm gonna wrap up this particular post. I hope to be back soon with a year-end wrap-up in which I discuss stuff like my favorite TV shows, music, and the few books I read.
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