One hard morning during 2016 I resolved not to look at the Attention-Seeker In Chief once in the following four years. I also knew that — if the world survived the four years of insanity — I would spend the rest of my life reading everything I could find explaining how we fell into this mess and how we got out of it.
For context I’m a British enthusiast for American politics and American political history. So for me, ignoring the attention-seeker until the 2018 Blue Wave and re-emergence of hope wasn't as difficult as it seems. And — outside of SNL — I still haven't heard his voice since November 2016.
Anyway, I digress. The point of this diary is to ask: how do you think you will retrospectively read about the madness and corruption of these four years? *
- Will you dive straight to the memoirs, journalistic exercises and contemporary histories?
- Will you wait for reputed Presidential historians to attempt to build a coherent narrative of it all?
- Will you read interdisciplinary accounts and explanations in fields such as psychology and sociology seeking sense in the nonsense?
- Will you move straight onto the Reconstruction and focus on questions of good governance rather than looking back on the dysfunction?
- Will you be so sick and pained to need a long-term detox? I'm thinking of PTSD levels of avoidance here.
To be clear, I don’t consider this to be a matter of right and wrong approaches.
Personally, the moment the attention-seeker leaves the WH I am taking a week off work to celebrate for humanity. Then I'll start reading with a purpose — to understand and work to educate others on why and how this should never happen again.
*Again, assuming we get out of this thing alive.