"Learning essential stuff is as much a discipline as going to the gym or sticking to a diet, and an excellent antidote for the modern condition of being numb and dumb."
My sister has developed an obsession with slasher movies. The other morning while I was staying at Dad and Johnnie's house in Plano, around the time the average among us would be looking for that second cup of coffee, she sat in the kitchen sipping a Diet Coke, watching a fight between two men in which one was stabbed in the arm, then fell, then died when the other smashed in his skull with a large statue of a man riding a horse, maybe a Remington reproduction. Aerial view of curled body with spreading pool of dark blood around him.
Sis was enraptured. I told her this shit was poison, that I never watch it and she shouldn't either. She replied with a giggle that it was something she enjoyed, and that she watches it all the time, as if we were debating the best topping for pizza.
What she said wasn't precisely true. I know for a fact that she carves out time between simulated disembowelments and decapitations for the occasional stroll through the internet in search of the latest outrageous political conspiracy theory, leading to a frantic working hours text to me ("is it true that Trump is going to cross-breed us with cattle to create a complacent super species?") followed by a double dosing of Xanax before passing out in front of her computer.
It occurred to me that this is all part of a larger problem these days, a numbness that settles over all of us after a barrage of too much negative stimulation. We're never, ever away from a screen now.
Am I any better? I reckon not, given that whatever outrageous thing has happened in the political world at some point finds its way in front of me through Drudge or the NYT. Trump tells us his agenda if reelected will entail making himself a dictator, if only for a day (wink wink, nod nod, say no more), and over time our ability to feel alarm erodes, gets sanded away by the messaging.
This morning came a fundraising call to "haul out the guillotine". Good thing they quit teaching European history years ago, or this might get someone's attention. Or not.
But what called me up short this morning was an interview in the NYT with J.D. Vance, Ohio senator and enfant terrible who seems to be auditioning for VP in a second Trump administration.
Vance is a toad, but as I read what he had to say, hidden in rambles about the illegitimacy of the 2020 election ("there are questions" seems to be the way this political season for the treasonous to sound thoughtful), he nailed something that's right there in plain view, that indicts guys like me to some degree.
The topic was tariffs and immigration. Vance's pitch regarding why Trump appeals as he does to a whole swath of left behind, white America is that the elites in this country benefit from a system of low wage labor fed by immigration. When Trump says that the elites don't care about them, that the Democrats have done basically nothing to ensure that a working class family can afford a place to live or have some measure of security in their lives, he's telling the truth. Of course, neither have the Rs, who also represent the elite, but that's not the point.
Both sides manipulate the poor souls stuck in a system that's been very good to a lot of us, at the expense of a lot of others. One of those folks likely brewed your $8 latte this morning, or took back the clipboard at your doctor's office. We need to recognize that and do better if we want to survive as a country.
You can read the whole interview here:
In the meantime, watch less slasher movies, and play less first person shooter video games. That stuff is toxic to your soul.
I dont watch slashers - I just watch air crash, train crash, or work place disaster videos to de-stress and calm myself and distract me from the disaster that real life in the post-2016 world really is.