This week I don’t really have a featured post. I’ve gathered a bunch of post-election reflections together and called it a featured post, but there’s no central theme that unites it into an essay. It should be out around 9 EST.
The reason I don’t have a featured post is that I can tell I haven’t really adjusted to the post-Trump world yet. It’s time to start thinking about how the new administration should govern and how people with liberal values should try to influence it to govern better. But I find myself still stuck in a reactive why-is-all-this-horrible-shit-happening mindset.
For example, I thought about responding at length to Justice Alito’s speech to the Federalist Society, and in general to the right-wing attempt to turn “religious liberty” into a wedge issue. But I was writing from a place of resentment, and that’s not where I want to be. So I’ll mention Alito in the weekly summary, but I won’t focus on him.
I think I might be typical in this respect: A lot of us have psychological work to do before we’re ready to move beyond Trump. We’re coming out of an abusive relationship. For a time, a day when we’re not insulted or outraged or psychologically assaulted will seem … dull, like a quiet moment on the battlefield while we wait for the next attack.
In the meantime, when I can tell that I’m still Trump-centered in a dysfunctional way, I’ll try not to pass it on. My PTSD shouldn’t trigger your PTSD.
So: featured post (sort of) around 9, weekly summary before noon. Try to stay sane out there.
The Weekly Sift 
Comments
Thee speaks my mind, as Quakers are wont to say. I’ve felt the quiet healing you’ve written of here occur within me during this past week, as I step back from four years of the assault on reason and conscience. I suppose this is the way a people becomes numb, and thus the increasing level of atrocity becomes normal, goes unchallenged, and then cannot be challenged. It’s been the inward strength of the people expressed through our form of government that has stopped the decline into barbarity. You’ve done your part. Thank you!
I had chalked a new calm on FB up to the “mass exodus” to Parler and MeWe, but he’s been quieter, too, now that you mention it.
Hearing you also call it PTSD makes me feel like I’m not alone in thinking that’s what I have. Let’s hope the next four years will be totally boring so that we all can heal.
Thanks for modeling good self-care and not moving forward with old resentments. We are indeed PTSD. We can help one another and you do just that.