The president elect, Donald Trump, continues to tweet and to stir up drama. His selection process for Secretary of State, seems like an amped up version of The Apprentice. His dinner with Mitt Romney, the parade of candidates in and out of Trump Towers, including Rudy Giuliani and General Petraeus, is supposed to keep pundits riveted on the edge of their seats in suspense. Who will he choose, when will he choose? Oh the drama and oh the ink spilled on who is and who isn’t a worthy candidate! Trump’s former campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway added to the drama by going on television and twitter and campaigning against her boss’s selection of Romney, only for all of us to find out later, that Trump had sanctioned her tweets and her interviews. It appears he was setting a ‘dog running’ to see how his supporters would respond to whether or not they’d accept ‘traitor Romney’ as Secretary of State.
I’ve refused to comment on all the tweets and articles about his Secretary of State pick except to say once and for all and not repeatedly, that I think Romney is a good pick all things considered (which isn’t saying much), but beyond that, I refuse to indulge the reality show drama of it all.
Meanwhile this week, he unleashed a twitter storm about the millions of fraudulent votes that put Hillary Clinton ahead of him in the popular vote, calling his own election win into question. Then, he announced by Twitter that he would quit running his businesses because the Presidency was too important. Although no plan or further announcement has been made as to how he actually might do this. Meanwhile, a staid government agency, the US Office of Government Ethics has released their own twitter storm in response, saying they welcome Trump putting his business aside and advising him about conflict of interest. See the tweetstorm here, it’s extraordinary! http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/u-s-office-of-government-ethics-goes-on-major-tweetsorm-to-praise-donald-trump/
Are we now moving to a government by the tweeple, of the tweeple and for the tweeple? Is Trump going to govern the nation by twitter? Really? Government policy in 140 character bits. Hmm….talk about the dumbing down of America!
To be honest, I am sick and tired of the Trump dance of drama. He loves getting all of our knickers in a twist and loves the media feeding frenzies that surround his every pronouncement. He feeds of the drama much as a dry alcoholic feeds on creating family drama and chaos even after they quit actively drinking. It seems as though the American public have become codependents, participants in a sick drama, hanging on every drama and tweet. As such we feed and are party to his addiction. We are becoming addicted to the drama. It’s exciting! The entire campaign was exciting–one long Trump-staged drama for those who are addicted to social media and addicted to a 24/7 news cycle and to reality t.v. shows.
Well, I’m going to try and go cold turkey on the Trump tweets and his generated drama. Whether it’s intentional or not, the drama keeps us off balance. It keeps us from developing long-term strategies, from reflecting, from thinking deep thoughts about our future and our vision for this country. It keeps us in a reactionary mode rather than being proactive. I want to shape the narrative I live in and respond to, not react. I want to be proactive, not reactive.
I know it’s important to call him out on things and to ensure he is not allowed to get away with subverting the Constitution or subverting our democratic institutions. He is seeking to undermine the media and our institutions that keep an authoritarian kleptocracy, such as his, from taking root. Dan Rather has set up a Facebook page and is posting lots of posts that will keep us from normalizing this kind of rhetoric and actions. See https://www.facebook.com/theDanRather/posts/10156957001515716
I don’t want to normalize Trump. It’s the same as not acting in a way that serves to normalize an alcoholic’s behavior. The behavior isn’t normal. The drama isn’t normal. It just isn’t. So how do we wean ourselves off the drama, detach ourselves, look after ourselves, and create boundaries that contain us and contain him from all the destructive drama?
We need to develop some sort of twelve step program to wean us away from the codependency. And I’m speaking to myself here. What are the hills to die on, the comments to respond to or to contain and say no, this isn’t on? Which ones to do we ignore? How do we respond? Some say contain him by solely arguing and commenting on policy and have policy to combat poor policy. Those people equate him to a Berlusconi, former Prime Minister of Italy. and the only way Berlusconi was ultimately banished from Italian politics was to banish him on policy grounds. Okay, that’s good. I get that, but what else?
How do we walk the fine line between normalizing his behavior and not getting swept up in every single tweet storm and drama? I’m reminded of some self-help books I read back in the day entitled the Dance of Anger: A Woman’s Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships and the Dance of Deception: A Guide to Authenticity and Truth Telling in Women’s Relationships, both by Harriet Lerner. Perhaps they warrant a reread! Both books need another look and how interesting they are about women not getting hooked into codependent relationships with bullying men in their lives. Another book I’m reminded of that I read way back in the day was Codependent No More, by Melody Beattie. There are tons of others that I could list here.
Other books that might help are books on mindfulness such as Mindful Compassion: Using the Power of Mindfulness and Compassion to Transform our Lives by Paul Gilbert and Choden. It’s the season of Advent and I’ve found daily meditations by Richard Rohr from the Centre for Action and Contemplation to be extremely helpful. See https://cac.org/ where you can subscribe to his meditations.
Humor is always good as well. I find poking fun and laughing at him and his pronouncements to be cathartic. Going for walks, binge watching silly t.v., all help.
What ideas do you have for not getting so swept up in the drama? It will be a long four years. We need to develop good coping strategies and learn how to be activists and engage in ways that are helpful, but that don’t contribute to or perpetuate the drama. Otherwise we’ll burn out before we begin and we’ll be fighting the wrong battles. We need to conserve our strength and reflect on which hills are the ones to die on, which battles will we choose to fight and we need to think about our long term strategy. We need to be proactive and not reactive in the face of this hyper drama-addicted person who is now the President Elect of the United States of America.