I wrote this in response to an email from someone who was warning not to dramatize our fear of Trump, to keep our language brief and vivil, and never to rant.
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I agree we must be cognizant of our audience or intended audience when we address the ramifications of Trump and Trumpism. I also think ranting isn’t an effective mode of persuasion.
Trump ranted, and continues to rant via his Tweets but his intended audience eat it up. For us ranting isn’t meant to convince anybody of anything, it is a way to vent which for some people, like me, is sometimes therapeutic.
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I’m at Willamette View along with many other liberal seniors, but also a few who voted for Trump. Staff here are warned not to engage in political discussions with residents, but I do talk with one staff member who feels as strongly as I do and is willing to talk politics. The other day we happened to be going down the stairs by Waterfalls and were venting about Trump’s latest insanity. As I got more agitated I realized there was a glorious echo in the stairwell and it really felt good to have my voice amplified in an unreal way — “he’s fucken crazy” sounded good.
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Some of what I write is serious, but some sarcastic. My intention is always to communicate, but if I wanted to persuade I’d try to get published on another venue. My language is unrestrained by good manners and civility in some of what I write. In other articles, it is Sunday school serious. I do try to be brief for the sake of clarity and, of course, and also to make it more likely readers won’t miss my main points.
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The country is so divided that it is extremely difficult to reach the other side. Fox News preaches to their choir, MSNBC to their choir. I never watch Fox, and I rather doubt Fox viewers watch MSNBC.
Some of them do watch Saturday Night Live, especially now that Trump is giving the show priceless publicity with his Tweets. As good for us as Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin impressions were, she wasn’t running for president. Alex Baldwin, who now has a four year gig playing Trump, and the cast and writers, may have more impact on Trump voters than anything else.
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Writing about what allies and adversaries think when they see how Trump reacts to the SNL sketches is worth an entire article.
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Everybody should watch last night’s SNL sketch and read Trump’s Tweet. It is beyond chilling to realize we have a president-to-be who is so — not thin skinned — but mentally unstable — that he continues to Tweet just weeks before he’s going to be sworn in as president. I wrote more than 20 Kos articles, as a psychotherapist, opining on his psychiatric diagnosis. There is no one diagnosis to describe him. When I write as a mental health professional I keep my language technical. When I write informally I sum his personality up as being batshit crazy.
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Now, everybody who missed it, take the time to watch SNL: