Thursday, January 30, 2025

My Head Is Hurting Again

 
by Pa Rock
Rural American

There are many nice people in the rural neighborhood where I live.  Most keep to themselves when they aren't working, but when they do mingle they are the pleasant and helpful sort who would do anything for a neighbor. They stop by and plow your driveway on wintry days or bring veggies from their gardens in the summer.  Nice folks, good neighbors.

But when the subject of politics comes up, and particularly talk of Donald Trump, the niceness evaporates and the toxicity levels surge.  My county always votes at least eighty percent for Trump.

A decade ago I was a member of a large pinochle group which played one night a week at the Senior Center, an activity I loved.   I was in my mid-sixties, and most of the group was older than me.  There were a few times when minor fusses would erupt over trivial things, but for the most part the players were congenial and got along very well together.

Then Donald Trump happened and the tone of the activity changed.  Conversations at the card tables took on a sharper edge and things got noticeably louder.  It wasn't necessarily political differences that brought about the sudden change in atmosphere because most of the old people in the room were ardent Trump supporters - and those few of us who weren't just kept quiet and concentrated on our cards when politics were being discussed.

But suddenly people whole lived in an almost entirely white community were railing about immigrants coming in to take their jobs - never mind that most of the group was already retired and anyone who wanted a job had one.   They were also being fired up with promises of sudden empowerment under Trump.  They were absorbing the Fox News garbage at home, letting it fester, and then bringing it to the pinochle games and spitting it on one another.

I maintained my membership in the weekly card group for as long as I could stand it, but finally quit going.  It was no longer fun, and my head was starting to hurt.

About that same time I was also in cardiac rehab (a cardio fitness class with a heart-monitoring component), again with a big contingent of old people.  There was a large television mounted to the wall, and the group watched and listened to it while they exercised.  Unfortunately, it was permanently turned to Fox News - as are the televisions in many doctor's clinics and other venues across the US.  Fox got crazier as the election of 2016 drew nearer, and the people in the cardiac rehab group grew louder and angrier.   It got to the point where I felt like whatever heart benefits I was receiving from the exercise were being negated by the damage to my mental health from the discourse in the room.   One morning the river of bullshit got so wide and deep that I pulled off my monitors and left - figuring that unless something changed quickly, a risk of stroke was greater than the risk of a heart attack.  When the nurse who was monitoring the group telephoned me later in the day to find out whay I had walked out, I told her.

Last year I was back in the same cardiac rehab program and it was a much more pleasant experience.  The television was still there, but now it was turned to TV Land, and we watched reruns of Wagon Train  and Gunsmoke while we exercised.

This year I have once more been routed into cardiac rehab.  The television has been turned to a channel that runs nature and humorous videos - with the sound off.  But this year we have just come off of a long and very contentious presidential campaign, and the country is back to dealing with the vagaries and political antics of Donald Trump.

The television may be silent, but the members of the group are not, and they are quick to repeat and embellish every lie that they have heard on Fox News.   Yesterday a couple used stories about the US government giving $50 million in condoms to the Palestinians in Gaza - and Barack Obama and Michelle Obama's impending divorce - neither of which is true - to stir angry remarks and conversations in the group.

It's called "flooding the zone," and it involves generating "news" faster than the public can possibly evaluate and digest it.  Presidential pronouncements, outrageous political stunts, crazy tweets from the President or his staff, and all manner of distractions designed to keep people stirred-up and off-balance.  Keep the rubes focused on the crackpot stuff so they don't have the time or energy to zero-in on your long game and the ways in which you are destroying their future.

My head is once again hurting as a result of having to function in an insane bubble of Trumpism, but this time I really think that for the sake of my heart health, I need to stay in the group.

Today I will be shopping for headphones.

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