Learning from grief, learning from rage progressive survival under Donald Trump will require both

[applegrove]

by Eesha Pandit at Salon

http://www.salon.com/2016/11/26/learning-from-grief-learning-from-rage-progressive-survival-under-donald-trump-will-require-both/

"SNIP..............


The rage comes first, or the grief does. In the middle of the night, it’s usually grief. In the face of complacency, it’s rage. Sometimes bewilderment sneaks in, under cover of darkness. Grief’s cousin, despair, is usually not far behind.

In response to public declarations of anger, on social media, in social settings I’ve noticed a trend. Some people become very uncomfortable in its presence. They argue with it, saying things like, “Well, he’s our president now, so let’s give him a chance.” Or “I don’t think he’ll actually do all the terrible things he’s said he will do.” They rationalize with the anger, others or even their own.

...............

So our work, if we listen to these theoreticians of social and emotional conditions, is not first to reconcile our grief and rage. It is not to try to rationalize them, to cover them with unconsidered action, to bury them as useless or distracting. As so many of our elected officials, and their compatriots, take their ill-defined “victory” as a mandate to increase state-sanctioned racism and sexism, our work is of course to resist with all the political and personal strategies we can muster.

One of those strategies is to become familiar with rage, born of grief or anything else. To understand it, to reckon with it, to become so intimate with it, such that we know when it aims to destroy us, and when it aims to destroy the institutions that oppress us. Therein lies all the difference.


................SNIP"

[Abq_Sarah]

1. I am so thankful

I have a life outside of politics. I have never cried, thrown a temper tantrum or become suicidal when my chosen candidate lost. It's Not Healthy.

[MFM008]

2. Neither is life under the

Maggot republicans.

[applegrove]

3. Bet you would be unhappy if someone in your family had a pre-existing condition.

Politics matters. Trump is going to go into so much debt there will be program cuts. On so many levels this is bad. You have to feel for the kid who will not get a pell grant and a good life (and pay it all back and more in taxes over his/her lifetime) just because the GOP doesn't want to face an educated and powerful middle class.