Reacting to the Trump Presidency

Robert Reich
1.17.2017

With Trump becoming president, some of you may be tempted to succumb to one of the following 4 syndromes. Please don’t.

1. Normalizer Syndrome. You want to believe Trump is just another president – more conservative and pompous than most, but one who will make rational decisions. You’re under a grave delusion. Trump has a serious personality disorder and poses a clear and present danger to America and the world.

2. Outrage Numbness Syndrome. You’re no longer outraged by what Trump says or does – his incessant lies, his dystopian cabinet picks, his bullying, his hatefulness – because you’ve gone numb. You can’t conceive that someone like is about to be president of the United States, so you’ve shut down emotionally. Maybe you’ve even stopped reading the news. Please get back in touch with your emotions and reengage with what’s happening.

3. Cynical Syndrome. You’ve become so cynical about the whole system – the Democrats who gave up on the working class and thereby opened the way for Trump, the Republicans who suppressed votes around the country, the media that gave Trump all the free time he wanted, the establishment that rigged the system – that you say the hell with it. Let Trump do his worst. You need to wake up. It can get a lot worse.

4. Helpless Syndrome. You aren’t in denial. You know that nothing about this is normal; you haven’t become numb or stopped reading the news; you haven’t succumbed to cynicism. You desperately want to do something to prevent what’s about to occur. But you don’t know what to do. You feel utterly powerless and immobilized.

Instead of falling prey to one of these syndromes, I urge you to take action – demonstrate, resist, demand your members of congress also resist, join with others in making a ruckus, commit yourself to changing American politics.

Fighting Trump will empower you. And with that power you will not only to minimize the damage, but also get this nation and the world back on the course it must be on.

We need you in the peaceful resistance army.

What do you think?

Source
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