Protecting your mental health during a clown president's second term

We are on day two of President Kayfabe and the first day was pure stunts and stupidity to flood the news with garbage views that most people in the country don't support.

I've learned a lot about mental health over the years and the one thing that feels like a real root cause is when situations don't jibe with how you expect them to, but they continue to be that way, day after day, so your brain and your body begin to revolt, building up anxiety and depression and making you feel worse and worse.

I knew people that worked on Obama's campaign and they described their behind-closed-doors activities like a West Wing TV episode. Obama didn't endorse specific new books so as not to show favoritism or abuse his role in office to influence book sales. Obama's idealistic staffers talked about having separate computer printers and copy machines for any non-election related printouts, for fear that the election commission would come after them for the 5 cents per page they might get courtmartialed for.

In 2017, Trump walked into the office and started tweeting that everyone should buy his daughter's junk products from Nordstrom. Every constitutional scholar started posting each specific law that was broken each day and how it'd be days to weeks before the president would apologize and backtrack on all of it, due to the decorum of the office. There were whole podcasts launched by legal professors chronicling all the ways Trump was breaking laws and traditions.

We know how this ends. Nothing ever came from it.

The president even paid someone to not speak to media using his own election funds that are illegal to touch for such an activity, all to influence an election he was involved in and he even admitted in public it should be an impeachable offense, but years later when it is revealed to have happened exactly this way, even after his personal lawyer served time in prison for lying about it, still, STILL, nothing happened to the guy. Naturally, you start to lose faith in election law, laws in general, and the Supreme Court as they all fell in line to back him. We all took civics and government classes as kids and knew about basic laws, so why doesn't anything apply to this specific president?

Trump is president teflon, and no matter what laws or traditions or rules of order he breaks and abuses, nothing will ever stick to him and he will never face any consequences. It sucks, and I know everyone wants to believe in karma as a concept, but for some reason it doesn't apply to that jackass. Accepting the truth that a terrible person is doing terrible things and won't ever see consequences is one way to feel better, even though it is wildly unjust. You can stay mad at a brick wall and go outside and yell at it every day for four years, or you can chalk it up to being a brick wall who will never change. It sucks, but there it is.

If it makes you feel any better, someday he'll probably die alone on a toilet.

How do we get through this?

Here's a list of the best tips I can give for protecting your mental health during President teflon's second term, by doing what I did near the end of his first term.

Don't drink from the firehose.

Unfollow breaking news accounts that give hour by hour updates of stuff they think is going to happen, is in progress, and what might happen after. Ignore news based on rumors entirely.

Configure your social media apps to get out of a treadmill of news speculation. It will constantly give you a glimmer of hope before reality crushes any idea of it, and it'll happen every day. Day after day, we were not meant to endure disappointment in cycles like this so don't let it happen to you.

Personally, I use Bluesky much less these days, because it feels a lot like Twitter in 2017, which was a terrible place to be as a democrat enduring daily conjecture about news.

I also stopped looking at anyone in the Occupy Democrats orbit. There are half a dozen people who post hourly "take downs" of stuff republicans are doing and I've come to realize they really are like "Blue Anon" or a Qanon for left-leaning people, telling you there's constantly a massive news drop about to happen that will take down the president and the entire unjust system, and then they say it day after day, for years on end, and guess what? It never happens.

Track news at the national level.

You're not putting your head in the sand if you choose to ignore breaking news. It's perfectly ok to take a step back from the onslaught that is all around you.

In 2017 I quit Twitter for a few months and the best thing for my mental health was to stop reading daily tweets of people saying "The president has done 3 illegal things already today and it's only 10:30AM!!!"

Instead, I paid attention to Apple News notifications. I went from enduring 50 breaking news items per day to reading one major news item every 2-3 days that reached the national level. If you get a Apple News push notification on your iPhone, that's an actual newsworthy story that is happening nationwide.

Getting out of the daily grind of people's conjecture about what might happen and what is likely to happen and instead looking at what actually happens after the fact was a lot easier on my mind.

Decrease your feeling of hopelessness around international issues by picking your local battles

Colonialism is never going away so western countries are going to continue bombing and killing people all around the world when they want to take over those nations and it fucking sucks as a regular person on the other side of the planet just going about your day. I give to aid organizations whenever I can, but I also feel better when I take the helplessness and the insignificant feelings and apply it to something local in my daily life that I can directly influence.

I go to meetings and give thousands to local trail organizations because I want more safe, fun places for people to ride their bikes. I also give lots of money to my local food bank and a state gay rights organization where I'm cozy with some board members.

And jeez, you can make a hell of an impact on a group run by 8 people fighting for funding and approvals if you lean into it. When you become a big fish in a small pond, it finally feels like cause and effect actually mean something. And that helps.

Ignore the stunts and fight the real battles

The republican playbook these days is basically identical to shitposting on social media. They propose something wild, get everyone in a froth, then don't actually carry through on things or release some anemic version of what was originally proposed. Everything is a stunt to take your eye off the ball. Musk does a Nazi salute on Inauguration Day so people talk about that instead of the crazy shit the president said right after he was sworn in.

Never forget they are good at elections but inept at actual governing

There's one thing I'll never forget about Trump's first presidency. He talked about infrastructure and fixing the nation's bridges and it was part of his America First plan during the election cycle all the way through his four years. Everyone wants better, safer structures around them and the idea is wildly popular.

Then it became a running joke after a while. Any time there was bad press for Trump he would declare this week was "infrastructure week!" and do a news event with trucks or bulldozers.

During this time, I honestly wondered if in 20 years I'd have to begrudgingly tell my someday grandchildren that even though he was the worst president of my life, at least he got the bridges repaired and saved roads and schools from deteriorating in a harsh climate that was tearing everything apart.

Obama was actually good at this, and he put up signs everywhere for freeways and bridges that got fixed. I know because I remember seeing those logos designed by Aaron Draplin and Chris Glass everywhere.

But Trump never followed through on any of it. Fixing things in America is wildly popular and people would back it no matter the costs. Divert some of our military budget to bridges and watch even hardcore liberals get happy about it. But the party is inept at doing hard projects because they have zero interest in governing.

Right before Election Day 2024, Trump floated the idea of getting rid of daylight savings time, and soon. This is another wildly popular viewpoint held by almost everyone. It's an annoying, antiquated process that disrupts our lives every six months for little upside. Literally everyone I know with a pet or a kid or just likes their sleep wants to get rid of it immediately.

We could get rid of daylight savings time tomorrow and never have to experience it ever again, and yet, mark my words because it won't happen over this entire term, because these aren't serious professionals who know how to get interagency governmental cooperation working in any way, shape or form. I would love to be wrong about this, but we will have daylight savings time through 2028.

Final thought tips:

The only way out is through.

Stay safe and don't forget to protect yourselves.

Do no harm. Take no shit.