Trump is making people crazy. Literally. But I’m not sure it’s actually Trump’s fault.
So it seems that Trump is stopping people having sex.
There’s a lot of ink been wasted on how crazy Trump is. Not it seems he’s making other people crazy too. From Politico:
CNN before love-making is not his idea of a turn-on.
But she can hardly turn it off—engrossed as she is in the latest unnerving gyrations of Washington.
Who else to blame but Donald Trump? A president who excites hot feelings in many quarters has cooled them considerably in the bedroom of a Philadelphia couple, who sought counselling in part because the agitated state of American politics was causing strain in their marriage.
The couple’s story was relayed to POLITICO by their therapist on condition of the couple’s anonymity. But their travails, according to national surveys and interviews with mental health professionals, are not as anomalous as one might suppose. Even when symptoms are not sexual in nature, there is abundant evidence that Trump and his daily uproars are galloping into the inner life of millions of Americans.
During normal times, therapists say, their sessions deal with familiar themes: relationships, self-esteem, everyday coping. Current events don’t usually invade. But numerous counselors said Trump and his convulsive effect on America’s national conversation are giving politics a prominence on the psychologist’s couch not seen since the months after 9/11—another moment in which events were frightening in a way that had widespread emotional consequences.
Empirical data bolster the anecdotal reports from practitioners. The American Psychiatric Association in a May survey found that 39 percent of people said their anxiety level had risen over the previous year—and 56 percent were either “extremely anxious” or “somewhat anxious about “the impact of politics on daily life.” A 2017 study found two-thirds of Americans’ see the nation’s future as a “very or somewhat significant source of stress.”
… Jennifer Panning, a psychologist from Evanston, Illinois, calls the phenomenon “Trump Anxiety Disorder.” She wrote a chapter on it in a collection by mental health experts called “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.” In an interview, she said the disorder is marked by such symptoms as “increased worry, obsessive thought patterns, muscle tension and obsessive preoccupation with the news.”
Yeah, nah, I’m not buying it.
I mean sure. I think people probably do genuinely think that Donald Trump is screwing up the entire world, and that makes them incredibly worried.
Poor buggers.
But I’m not pinning this on Trump.
I’m pinning it on the media.
I don’t think people realise just how quickly the media landscape has changed.
The Fairfax and Murdoch dailies have been the cornerstones of Australian media for generations, but these days they are hanging on for dear life. The internet knocked their business models right out from under them.
But ‘online’ was just phase one.
Phase two was the creation of a ‘thought bubble’ industry. Partly driven by economics, partly driven by social media algorithms that feed you more of what you like, almost all of us now live in thought bubbles – where we’re soaked in the things we agree with already, and shielded from the things we don’t.
And since we believe ourselves to be fair and balanced, we didn’t notice our media institutions pivoting to particular niches. You didn’t think you were part of a market, you just stopped reading ‘The Age’ because ‘The Australian’ just had a better grip on the issues, and more columnists you liked.
Or you didn’t realise you were part of the push by The Guardian to eat into the progressive fringe of The Age’s turf. You were just relieved to finally see a paper in Australia ‘tell it like it is.’
And so in America, just like in Australia, people live in self-reinforcing thought bubbles. As a result half of Americans think Trump is doing a good job, because that’s what they see in their media – because they believe it already.
The other half think Trump is a monster, because their media tells them he’s a monster… again, because they believe it already.
I don’t know what the actual truth is. Right now, it doesn’t matter.
All that matters right now is that people’s hunger for the shock and horror of Trump is being served with stories of how shocking and horrible Trump is, and as a result, people are feeling shocked and horrified…
… to the point of dysfunction.
These are very strange days. But right now, the health of your mindset depends on this:
Don’t let your thought bubble drive you crazy.
See the game for what it is. Protect yourself. Inoculate yourself.
And if you won’t do it in the name of success and happiness…
… do it for your sex life.