Living in an abusive political culture

This is a followup to Cheryl’s thoughtful and thought-provoking post below, about how all opponents of Trump are in a metaphorical and perhaps sometimes even literal abusive relationship with him. Of course one of the things his enablers love so much about him is precisely that he creates this relationship with “the libs,” “the woke,” “the [clang]” etc etc etc.

I’d like to offer another analogy, which is that of a freakishly bad experience, that never happens in normal life as long as people have any sort of actual volition.

Imagine a major league baseball player who is not merely below replacement level (a replacement level player is someone who in an efficient market for talent can be acquired without surrendering anything in return; somebody who has been given their unconditional release by another organization for example), but who is absolutely terrible in every possible way: a player who can’t hit for average or power, who never walks, who is slower than anyone else in the league, who can’t play any defensive position adequately, and, who in addition to all this is a clubhouse cancer, a compulsive gambler who bets against his own team and tries to win those bets by throwing games, and an all-around sociopath, who is constantly getting in legal trouble for sexual assaults, drunk driving, and so forth. In other words, imagine the very worst player in major league history in terms of any single one of these characteristics, and Trump is that player, except he’s that player in terms of ALL OF THEM AT THE SAME TIME.

Also his salary takes up the entire payroll, and his contract can’t be legally cancelled for at least three more years.

You can make your own analogies to other things, such a restaurant where the food is wildly expensive, totally disgusting, and quite possibly poisonous, while you’re required to eat there every day, as the music you hate more than any other in the world is blasted at high volume, and the waitstaff are all aggressive members of a cult who try to convert you in the course of the evening, every evening, for three more years, at least.

What I’m trying to capture here is that Trump represents the absolute worst of everything a person in his position can represent, in a way that is utterly unlike anything you will encounter in the rest of your life if you have any freedom of choice at all. But to be in any way a politically engaged person in 2025 on the internet (which is as a practical matter is somewhat if not completely redundant) is to be deprived of that choice.

The obvious escape route in terms of sanity is: detach as completely as possible from politics, even in its more culturally attenuated forms, such as Trump inserting himself into the mourning for Rob Reiner. I don’t think that’s realistically an option for many if any people here, which is why Cheryl’s post is so resonant.

What I’m trying to capture in my own way is the sheer absurdity, in a sort of psychologically existential sense, of our situation. It’s not like anything I’ve ever experienced before, probably because Trump is so extraordinarily good at inserting his depraved horribleness into every corner of social and cultural life.

One thing that struck me in thinking about the situation that this post tries to describe, is that assuming I get to witness it, Trump’s death is going to fill me with a kind of ecstatic exhilaration and sheer joy that will be, I’m sure, quite unlike anything I’ve ever felt at the death of any other person before, even those I genuinely despised and was happy to see dead. That is what he’s done to us, or at least to me: Made me the kind of person who is going to take the most profound pleasure and unequivocal joy, uncomplicated by any emotional reservation at the thought that this after all is still a human being, probably. “Any man’s death diminishes me/Because I am involved in mankind,” says that poet. Trump’s eventual death, which I think about at least once a day and usually more often, diminishes me because he makes me the kind of person who genuinely rejoices at the thought of another man’s pain and suffering. And that makes me hate and despise him all the more, and anticipate his death with an even more bitter desire.