None of this is normal
When it's hard to continue engaging, a note on why we must.
At the start of a new year, I think about all of the people who are at risk of permanently withdrawing from the news cycle.
The feeling emerges in the week between Christmas and New Year, during the days spent lying on the lounge reading shitty fiction, developing a crush on Travis Head and eating questionable leftovers. Capitalism and social media demand that we are accessible, interesting and valuable at all times - rest is a defiant act under that pressure. After a few days of disconnect (where you may actually be connecting with others), you can feel yourself clawing back parts of your identity that have gone missing in periods of deep anxiety and uncertainty.
In these conditions, I understand why people don’t return to the same levels of news oversight they once had. Apathy is a drug. It reduces conflict, numbs discomfort, removes vicarious trauma and rewards us with more personal care time. A purely individualistic approach to life is gold star capitalism. I also get it, insulation from harm is enticing - at least initially.
As someone whose life purpose is to positively engage people in politics, I have no interest in shaming people. I used to frequent this method, honestly. But I’ve learnt that humiliation, judgement and screaming are ineffective tools to invite another person to meet me in conversation. Yes, there is a level of privilege for most who can entirely block out the news cycle, but there is also privilege in white, tertiary-educated women (like me) yelling at people to educate themselves. People have diverse reasons for lacking media and political literacy. A high horse prevents me from confronting these issues face to face.
From a live-streamed genocide to the insecurity of housing, the fatigue of feeling informed but also relatively powerless to change international and domestic politics is almost unbearable. Acknowledging this pain is important. As the new year rolled in, Donald Trump began military strikes in Venezuela and abducted President Maduro. Trump’s intention was clear: US control of oil reserves. In the process, Venezuelan’s were liberated from a dictator and remain under US control. Of course, the binary prison of social media ensured that anyone critiquing Trump’s brazen imperialism and rejection of international law was met with accusations that they supported Maduro’s dictatorship. The internet is an exhausting place for those of us with the capacity to read a second sentence without forgetting what was said in the first.
The US President made blatant threats to use military force to take Greenland, destroying NATO and potentially descending into world war. ICE agents murdered two people in Minnesota. Trump invited nations to be part of his imperialist Gaza ‘Board of Peace’ with a membership price tag of US$1 billion. 230 executive orders later, if you had forgotten about the Epstein files - exactly.
This week, I felt like I was walking around with a tin foil hat on.
I already knew that many of the men who run the world spent their free time trafficking and sexually abusing children, because I believed the victim-survivors who have told us so for years. But to see it laid out in three million files and know those aren’t even the ‘redacted’ documents is beyond sickening. No additional arrests, charges or investigations have been announced. We’re all supposed to go about our day sending emails, folding washing and buying $23 sandwiches while the men who dominate our economies get away with the most heinous crimes ever committed because they got bored of having everything they have ever wanted.
