"I feel pre-exhausted," I heard someone say on the street after the election. I know what they mean. Many liberals and leftists experienced the beginning of Trump's first term as a constant barrage of menace and mayhem - much of it directed at them personally. That there was some narcissism in this didn't diminish its effects. Paying close attention to Trump's every move - like tracking a horse loose in a hospital, as comedian John Mulaney memorably put it - was full-time work. It was enervating."
This time feels different. At least to me. Perhaps it's simply a matter of non-novelty. The devil you know is at least less alarming than the devil you don't, and Donald Trump is a devil we know all too well.
Many young people refused to vote for Kamala Harris over the ongoing butchery in Gaza. They did so out of moral seriousness, not cynicism. And I suspect they have moral seriousness to spare.
The days that followed [the election] were filled with frenetic activity, urgency, and reevaluation. My girlfriend and I broke up; we were unhappy, and the rote hope that had sustained us seemed naïve, delusional in the face of history's reproach.
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