Trump is a drug that Americans can’t give up. Love him or hate him, he is a quick fix that we all cannot seem to quit. Even I, a leftist who is diametrically opposed to his very existence, from time to time, find the man to be funny. However, we cannot continue our existence with this monkey hanging on our back.
We must find a way to quit Trump.
Those within the liberal media establishment love him too. One only has to look at the time the media gives to the man, while also lambasting him for his illiberal ideas. According to Media Matters, from June 1st 2016 to Sept. 30th 2016 the man was roughly twice as many hours in additional coverage across all major networks.[1] They may hate him, but they need him.
He came at the perfect time. The average cable news viewer was getting older and steadily declining. No more did people watch MSNBC or CNN all day long, they were now trying to catch up on Breaking Bad on Netflix. Media groups realized that they can cash in on “resistance” to his administration, only further fueling our addiction.
There is money to be made in “resistance” to his ideology. The suits in cable news don’t care if his policies make the poor poorer or that they will result in an ever-worsening environment for their own children and grandchildren. What matters is that they’re getting their bag. That’s all that really matters. They can continue to promote fear of his administration knowing that they will not suffer. In fact, they’ll thrive! Nightly they can get on their soapbox showing highlight reels of the man. It’s easy money.
Who can resist the man with all-time tweets such as “I have never seen a thin person drinking Diet Coke” or “STOP THE COUNT!”? Sure, his beliefs and clout on the global stage have resulted in a backsliding of liberal democracy and the pushing to the right of the Overton window, but the man can post. Who needs the likes of legendary shitposters like @dril when you have the President of the United States putting out absolute bangers everyday. It’s the reality tv-ification of politics, something cable news could never offer before.
He’s more than just excellent TV ratings. His existence, as well as modern conservatism, is a rejection of the problems of the world. This is obvious following the defeat of Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. Nobody wants to hear about climate change, democratic backsliding, systematic issues around race and gender or the alienation of late stage capitalism. Those are scary, and our little dopamine-craving brains don’t want it. We want more. People want their treats. They want their cheap eggs, their cheap gas, their cheap entertainment. Anything for a quick hit. Who gives a fuck about climate change when my 10-piece combo at McDonalds costs $1 more than last year?
Biden, despite his milquetoast liberalism, was a wake up call. It was a call to action towards systematic issues, regardless of how half-assed it was. The American people don’t want that. We’re the greatest country on Earth! Systemic issues and global ecological collapse? Shut up liberal. How dare my gas cost an additional 20 cents?! I need to fill up the 30 gallon tank of my Suburban to pick up Bradilyn and McKynleigh from school! We need our sweet treats, and the mean Demon-crats want to take them away.
American consumerism is a cancer within us. Four easy payments using Klarna! Do you wanna sign up for the Ulta Beauty Rewards Credit Card for 15% of this purchase? Finance over 12 months with 0% APR! There is no wonder American Credit Card debt is over $1 trillion[2]. Trump is a reflection of this. The need for more and the ignorance of what actually matters. We must have more. It is a fundamental flaw of the human brain. People want Trump because he can feed them what they want, more.
It’s not matter of if, it’s a matter of when. This ideology will kill us. It’s like the sinking of the Titanic. We all know subconsciously that the ship is going down, but the band must keep playing. Voting for Trump is like an addict asking for one more hit before they flush it down the drain. The American people need a wake up call. Four more years of Trump might give us our sweet treats, but at what cost? We cannot “Drill, Baby, Drill” when the global mean temperature in 2024 was 1.6C above pre-industrial baseline. We cannot continue to force the working poor of the world to produce plastic garbage for us to consume without some form of reckoning.
I write this while Los Angeles is engulfed in flames. It makes one wonder, how much more damage must we endure as a country before we give him up? How much more carbon must we pump into the atmosphere before we say enough is enough? For our country and for our humanity we must give up this drug. Trump is but a mere symptom of something dark within the American psyche. We are more than consumers or human capital– We are fucking human beings. The further we enable men like him the further our bodies are decimated by the effects of this drug.
I must admit I have no idea what the next four years will mean for us or the world. As a queer person I know that my existence is a plague to the Donald Trumps of the world. But we must persevere. Do not take this writing as a call to give up. Continue pushing back against his ideas and standing up for those marginalized around you. It looks scary out here, but that doesn’t mean you stick your head in the sand, it means you stand the fuck up and hold your ground.
[1] https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/study-compared-msnbc-and-cnn-fox-news-devotes-more-time-trump-events-and-less-time
[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/13/credit-card-debt-hits-record-1point17-trillion-new-york-fed-finds.html
Hi guys! Thanks to tj for sharing this post with us!
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