Psych-Op-Ed

I got this unpleasant feeling recently, wading and soaking in the news, the punditry, the pandemic, the seasonal air currents. It was a meta feeling, which could be described this way:

We know everything.

We know Trump is a failed child, composed of impotence and injury and rage, the rat with a thorn in its paw that no lion ever extracted for him. We know contemporary Republicans are not decent, but are psychologically botched, often in the general realm of sociopathy. They easily blend the true principle of autonomy with racist exclusionism. They need their club affiliation – Trump Club – more than they need their self-worth, their self. We know that all people live on opinions based on attitudes, based on feelings that are never questioned.

We know there is now, most unpleasantly, a theme in the national sky that binds all of us liminally: We must be forcibly deferential, wearing masks; and we all know that the virus has won because American individ­ual­ism degenerated at some point to childish defiance.

We know that just as Hollywood is high school with money, government leadership is rival gangs with turf wars, enforcers, signals and group-think ideologies. The never-reached rainbow’s end is “what is right?”, “what is wise?”, “what is mature?”, “what is practical?”

All this knowledge has sapped my interest in, my ability to write comments on the daily papers such as the New York Times, Slate, Mother Jones. For me, there is nothing left to say. This will very likely revert to my old matchstick-in-the-wind argumentation when November approaches, and if Biden becomes president. My heart would then be filled, momentarily, with joy and explosive revenge. If Trump wins, I suspect my attitude will be “same projectile diarrhea, different day,” and there will be no more words. I’d wearily imagine joining my expat clients in Puerto Vallarta, then slip back to my routine, like Puff sadly to his cave.

Knowing everything is insipid these days.