I know some people in their 60's who are Fox News watchers and Trump fans who are having all sorts of serious health problems. This is happening all over the country. Grievance politics seems to be killing its own adherents.
Thank you, Sabrina! This tracks exactly with what I have been thinking. Joy and hope and laughter - the antidotes to the former guy's fear and doom and gloom.
There's even been a book written about how the statistics play out between the parties. It was published in 2011, so it predates our current political conundrum and it's still a fascinating read:
Once again, you’ve produced an essay that really resonates, with a perspective I don’t see elsewhere. It is indeed very cathartic when everyone laughs together at the Harris/Walz rallies. It’s downright Aristotelian.
Also, it’s fun to think of the poor slobs in the front row at Trump rallies, getting sprayed with hate-filled spittle.
Wonderful! I took your advice and I’m watching the first rally w/Kamala and ‘America’s Dad’ … I’m a softie, I know, and ‘uplifting’ is the word that comes to mind … JOY! Lovely to have it back in the public arena.
This outpouring of support and energy for Harris / Walz is the release from the poison that Trump has been pumping into the atmosphere for nearly a decade. He has pent-up / tamped down our best selves that now we, as a nation, are rediscovering. And we're not going back to disease, mass death, recession, suppression, misogyny, racism, hatred, and ignorance.
Thanks, Sabrina, for your celebration of the Harris/Walz campaign and their focus on what's positive about our US. However, as a retired psychiatrist/addiction medicine specialist/physician, I must protest that our fight-flight reaction and its negative health consequences is far more nuanced than just conflating it with whatever exactly are "negative" emotions. I'm the author, as you may or may not know, of the free online e-book PDF, "Stress R Us" and have led numerous discussion groups on "stress" and its deleterious health effects when it becomes chronic, as it so often does in our "toxic" trauma laden culture and physical/social/political environments. I label this culprit "population density stress" and define it in the book, but it includes all of the many stressors in our urban/suburban day to day environments, our alienation from Nature and our spiritual roots, our loss of the tremendously supporting and destressing clan/band social structures of our Hunter-Gatherer ancestors, the crowding among strangers so prevalent in "modern" urban/suburban societies, the MSM filled hourly with on cataclysm/war/natural disaster after another, the "nuclear family", and more recently, climate collapse (previously known as "climate change"). So, stress is our real enemy, not the amorphous "negativity" you suggest.
I had the great, if stressful, pleasure of spending 6 weeks in Bangkok back in 1974, as an employee of the DOS, and as the Medical Director of the Youth Treatment Center, in which young Americans were being treated for heroin addiction. I latched onto the fellow psychiatrist husband of one of the treatment staff, Dr. Doug Burns, who took me under his arm and introduced me to Buddhism, showed me through some of the many spectacularly beautiful and serene Temples in Bangkok, as well as the spirit of Buddhism and its focus on "compassionate regard" for all life. Since then, I have always abided in the old American Indian advice: "don't judge me until you have walked a mile in my moccasins". I have written extensively on the net and in "Greeley's Newsletter" on Substack, among other websites, diagnosing Donald J. Trump and his followers, and have been long engaged in my own recovery from addictions of many kinds. Your "negative" versus "positive" paradigm doesn't work for me and seems woefully simplistic. I do appreciate your passion and well-meaning efforts, but believe that we must respect and hold with compassionate regard all sides in any situation, personal or political. In that vein, I wish you peace and happiness and bid you farewell. May God be with you. Namaste'
fair enough. as a trial lawyer, I've learned to simplify messaging and leave the science up to learned folks like yourself. there's a thin line, more of a string really, between clarifying and condescending, and I avoid the latter as much as possible.
Sabrina Haake's argument, logically developed and supported with specific references, is persuasive. Her insights—like Walz's comically substituting "Weird" for dangerous-sounding pronouncements—neuter our fear-responses with the gift of their rational, common-sense simplicity. Her overview, honest and true as what we simply see and hear, is a happy relief from the disingenuous lies and perverse messaging designed to curtail our freedoms. Sometimes, things are simple — a cigar, just a cigar.
Sabrina Haake's argument, logically developed and supported with specific references, is persuasive. Her insights—like Walz's comically substituting "Weird" for dangerous-sounding pronouncements—neuter our fear-responses with the gift of their rational, common-sense simplicity. Her overview, honest and true as what we simply see and hear, is a happy relief from the disingenuous lies and perverse messaging designed to curtail our freedoms, and people are happily embracing and celebrating that real and recognizable difference in the Harris-Walz candidacy.
Excellent, Sabrina. Thank you.
Awesome post, Sabrina!
thanks Jon!
I know some people in their 60's who are Fox News watchers and Trump fans who are having all sorts of serious health problems. This is happening all over the country. Grievance politics seems to be killing its own adherents.
Kamala/Walz are lifting the weight of hate off of us. Anyone who is making you fearful, provoking anger, is manipulating you. Fear not.
Thank you, Sabrina! This tracks exactly with what I have been thinking. Joy and hope and laughter - the antidotes to the former guy's fear and doom and gloom.
There's even been a book written about how the statistics play out between the parties. It was published in 2011, so it predates our current political conundrum and it's still a fascinating read:
https://www.alibris.com/search/books/subject/Political-Science-Government?wquery=Why+Some+Politicians+Are+More+Dangerous+Than+Others
thanks I’ll check it out
Harris-Walz's superpower ! Well put ; )
Once again, you’ve produced an essay that really resonates, with a perspective I don’t see elsewhere. It is indeed very cathartic when everyone laughs together at the Harris/Walz rallies. It’s downright Aristotelian.
Also, it’s fun to think of the poor slobs in the front row at Trump rallies, getting sprayed with hate-filled spittle.
spittle they probably think is holy water
Wow! That was as refreshing as Kamala and Walz! Thank you, Sabrina!
thank you for reading. It’s so nice to inhabit a joyous space again!
Wonderful! I took your advice and I’m watching the first rally w/Kamala and ‘America’s Dad’ … I’m a softie, I know, and ‘uplifting’ is the word that comes to mind … JOY! Lovely to have it back in the public arena.
100%... I thought about having a group over to watch it... so awesome. last night Jill and I watched trump's presser... what a disaster
This outpouring of support and energy for Harris / Walz is the release from the poison that Trump has been pumping into the atmosphere for nearly a decade. He has pent-up / tamped down our best selves that now we, as a nation, are rediscovering. And we're not going back to disease, mass death, recession, suppression, misogyny, racism, hatred, and ignorance.
Thanks, Sabrina, for your celebration of the Harris/Walz campaign and their focus on what's positive about our US. However, as a retired psychiatrist/addiction medicine specialist/physician, I must protest that our fight-flight reaction and its negative health consequences is far more nuanced than just conflating it with whatever exactly are "negative" emotions. I'm the author, as you may or may not know, of the free online e-book PDF, "Stress R Us" and have led numerous discussion groups on "stress" and its deleterious health effects when it becomes chronic, as it so often does in our "toxic" trauma laden culture and physical/social/political environments. I label this culprit "population density stress" and define it in the book, but it includes all of the many stressors in our urban/suburban day to day environments, our alienation from Nature and our spiritual roots, our loss of the tremendously supporting and destressing clan/band social structures of our Hunter-Gatherer ancestors, the crowding among strangers so prevalent in "modern" urban/suburban societies, the MSM filled hourly with on cataclysm/war/natural disaster after another, the "nuclear family", and more recently, climate collapse (previously known as "climate change"). So, stress is our real enemy, not the amorphous "negativity" you suggest.
I had the great, if stressful, pleasure of spending 6 weeks in Bangkok back in 1974, as an employee of the DOS, and as the Medical Director of the Youth Treatment Center, in which young Americans were being treated for heroin addiction. I latched onto the fellow psychiatrist husband of one of the treatment staff, Dr. Doug Burns, who took me under his arm and introduced me to Buddhism, showed me through some of the many spectacularly beautiful and serene Temples in Bangkok, as well as the spirit of Buddhism and its focus on "compassionate regard" for all life. Since then, I have always abided in the old American Indian advice: "don't judge me until you have walked a mile in my moccasins". I have written extensively on the net and in "Greeley's Newsletter" on Substack, among other websites, diagnosing Donald J. Trump and his followers, and have been long engaged in my own recovery from addictions of many kinds. Your "negative" versus "positive" paradigm doesn't work for me and seems woefully simplistic. I do appreciate your passion and well-meaning efforts, but believe that we must respect and hold with compassionate regard all sides in any situation, personal or political. In that vein, I wish you peace and happiness and bid you farewell. May God be with you. Namaste'
fair enough. as a trial lawyer, I've learned to simplify messaging and leave the science up to learned folks like yourself. there's a thin line, more of a string really, between clarifying and condescending, and I avoid the latter as much as possible.
Sabrina Haake's argument, logically developed and supported with specific references, is persuasive. Her insights—like Walz's comically substituting "Weird" for dangerous-sounding pronouncements—neuter our fear-responses with the gift of their rational, common-sense simplicity. Her overview, honest and true as what we simply see and hear, is a happy relief from the disingenuous lies and perverse messaging designed to curtail our freedoms. Sometimes, things are simple — a cigar, just a cigar.
thanks! no five cent cigars anymore, but the point remains…
Sabrina Haake's argument, logically developed and supported with specific references, is persuasive. Her insights—like Walz's comically substituting "Weird" for dangerous-sounding pronouncements—neuter our fear-responses with the gift of their rational, common-sense simplicity. Her overview, honest and true as what we simply see and hear, is a happy relief from the disingenuous lies and perverse messaging designed to curtail our freedoms, and people are happily embracing and celebrating that real and recognizable difference in the Harris-Walz candidacy.
Right on track with your observations! The Trump disease spreads to all who believe him! Likely, it’s incurable too! Vote BLUE ‼️