As a new year of torment commences under the administration of President Donald Trump, the only consolation for non-MAGA Americans is, well, nothing. Sorry. For the most part, the only refuge can be found in a shared reality: No, you’re not crazy. I feel the same way.
I receive daily calls and texts from friends and family searching for answers, as though I sit atop a mountain of insight. Who, me? I’m sitting in a pit of despair.
Whether it’s the unsanctioned usurping of Venezuela’s government with the nighttime kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro or the fatal shooting in Minneapolis of a 37-year-old U.S. citizen by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, life feels out of control. And dangerous.
My contacts want to know if others are as freaked out as they are. Yes, yes and yes. But what can you do? This is where the conversation usually stalls. And what’s next? Are we going to war with Mexico? Trump has said that drugs are pouring through Mexico so “we’re going to have to do something.” Are we going to invade Greenland? Trump says annexing Greenland is a national security necessity. And what about NATO? Are we abandoning Europe?
In his pursuit of hemispheric hegemony, Trump isn’t just isolating the United States from our allies; he’s creating a political divide at home that is becoming an irreparable chasm. Social media brims with comments such as “I voted for this,” as Trump does the next worst thing. At the end of this week, it was Trump’s withdrawal of U.S. support for more than 60 international organizations.
Meanwhile, more rational Americans feel paralyzed in a hellish limbo. Trump is making them feel crazy because no one who can do something is saying anything. To its credit, the Senate did just advance a largely symbolic measure to block further military action in Venezuela by Trump.
We’ve watched a full year of Trump 2.0 with no reprieve in sight — and he’s got three more years? It always starts with the small stuff — renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, paving over the Rose Garden, demolishing the East Wing and, recently, adding his name to the Kennedy Center. It’s all designed to dazzle and confuse, numbing us for bigger stuff to come.
The Republican-controlled Congress ought to be ashamed. If the cat’s got their tongue, they need to go home and hug their blankies. To paraphrase Mayor Jacob Frey (D), who told ICE to “get the f— out of Minneapolis,” your presence is no longer required. My fear is what Trump’s Rasputin, Stephen Miller, will come up with next. He recently told CNN’s Jake Tapper: “We’re a superpower. And under President Trump, we are going to conduct ourselves as a superpower.” Tapper later said: “I don’t even know, honestly, what you’re talking about right now.” I’d translate it as: Stay out of our way.
As in Renee Nicole Good, the woman who tried to drive away but was shot to death by ICE? Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem defended the agent as doing his job, contrary to what we can see with our own eyes. Witnesses say there was no threat. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) urged people not to buy the government’s “propaganda,” while the president accused Good of trying to “run over” the agent. Trump, we’ve been told, is second to none in supporting law enforcement. But then why did he pardon or commute the sentences of more than 1,500 criminals who attacked and traumatized Capitol police officers in the Jan. 6 riot?
Swooping into Venezuela ostensibly to stop the flow of drugs to America, only to commandeer the country and its oil supplies, is equally farcical when just last month Trump pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who had been sentenced to 45 years in prison for conspiring with traffickers to funnel at least 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S.
If democracy suddenly erupts in Venezuela, I’ll run a correction.
So, yes, I’m dazed but not confused. My only consolation has come, not surprisingly, from a comedian. Dave Chappelle, in his Netflix special “The Unstoppable,” which was performed in October in D.C., makes one feel briefly sane. A part political rant mixed with some gratuitous raunch, the 75-minute show featured a chain-smoking Chappelle delivering brutal truths about today’s world.
I was impressed by an empathetic moment of solidarity with the audience. If you’re feeling like things are weird now, he softened his tone, “you are not alone.” Well, thanks for that, Dave, and also for reminding us that humor is the antidote to horror — which perfectly explains why Trump, after attacking the “fake media” through his first term, seized on comedians in 2025.
For what it’s worth, you’re not alone if you feel like the world is crashing around you. And if you’ve read this far, you’re probably not crazy. Our only recourse will soon be within our sights — the November midterms.
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