Dear Boogie - Volume 9
Dear Boogie,
I can’t do another four years of this bullshit. I just can’t. I’m so angry and so sad and so powerless and hopeless. What are we supposed to do?
Make America Sane Again
Dear MASA,
I know how you feel. I can’t believe Reba McEntire used the final steal of the battles on Cassidy Lee, taking her from Team Bublé! I’m not sure how we’re supposed to move on from this! She’s such a cold-hearted snake! And that was supposed to be Paula Abdul’s thing!
Wait a sec - I’m gathering from context clues that you’re not talking about last week’s episode of The Voice. You’re probably talking about the presidential election. Yeah… gah. Rough week. It was a serious bummer for reasons not the least of which was that it didn’t even remotely involve Snoop Dogg.
Honestly, I am of two minds about even offering advice about this topic. On the one hand, this is an advice column and you did ask. On the other, I am a cis white heterosexual male with a valid US passport and above-average intrinsic rhythm. I am not the one being targeted by the far right agenda. Were I to offer any sort of “it’s going to be alright” platitudes, I would expect every marginalized person reading this to rightfully respond with a hearty “fuck you!”
But MASA, processing emotions is kind of my thing, so I will do my best to address the emotional reactions that me and you and many others are having and see if we can find some corn kernel of hope in this pile of hateful, festering bullshit. So let’s go through some fucking feelings, shall we? As we look at each emotion, we can explore an antidote on how to best manage it from driving the bus. And - just for fun - let’s do it Inside Out style! Because that movie rules.
This is my go-to with this shit. I turn into a flaming, spitting pinwheel of bile, spraying my rage in every direction. Judging by all your social media posts (which I recommend taking a break from, by the way), you’re a bunch of little Lewis Blacks just like me. Weirdly enough, my anger isn’t so much directed at Trump. It’s hard for me to be mad at such a clearly sick, unhinged pile of damage. I’m more angry at the much smarter, more calculated bad actors pulling this idiot’s strings. But even then, I’m not naive enough to believe that big money corporate interests aren’t completely amoral. It’s sort of illogical to be mad at a sociopath for being a sociopath.
No - I’m mostly angry at my neighbors.
How could these people I know and otherwise love not see through this obvious bullshit? How could they vote for a convicted felon who tried to overthrow the goddamn government? How could they hear someone say ‘mass deportation’ and not think that person is an inhuman, unfeeling monster? How could they be so dumb? So selfish? Such bad neighbors? How could they?
The antidote: empathy. I don’t like feeling angry all the time. It’s unproductive. And as hard as it is to empathize with Trump voters, I still try to do it. Ultimately, it’s not for them. It’s for me. I need to remind myself of their inherent humanity in order to not lose my own. An important fact that helps me is that there is a calculated, powerful propaganda machine that targets and exploits these people’s weaknesses. The institutions they trust are in reality betraying them. I don’t look at your average Trump voters as actually winning anything. Just like everyone else in this shit show, they’re also victims of this intentional well-funded con. Like with the patriarchy, everybody loses.
Here’s the tricky bit: it’s not about whether Trump voters deserve my empathy or not. That is beside the point. The question is - who am I? Am I person that dehumanizes other people, regardless of how ignorant they are? I hope not and I try not to be. When I focus on empathy, I’m able to let go of my anger a little bit and move on to the emotion that really lies underneath the anger…
What is going to happen? When Trump was first elected in 2016, comedian Marc Maron said something along the lines of “I feel like we’ve just contracted a disease but we don’t know what the symptoms are yet.” This time around, it seems like the evil actors have their shit together a little more with all this Project 2025 bullshit ready to use the force of government to push our nation into a sort of Taliban Lite. It’s a good bet that life is going to get harder for basically everyone that’s not in the billionaire class, including some truly terrifying prospects for some marginalized groups. So yeah - telling ourselves “it’s going to be fine” just isn’t going to cut it this time.
The antidote: action. When we are flooded with anxiety, our brains tend to go into ‘avoid mode.’ We get overwhelmed with fear and ruminate on the thought “something very bad is going to happen.” The main problem is that we stay there. We don’t ask the next crucial question: what am I going to do next?
The Wednesday morning after the election, you didn’t all stop existing. You probably ate breakfast. You probably went to work. Some of you might even have showered! (I mean, I didn’t - but my natural funk has well-researched antidepressant qualities.) The point is - the more primitive anxious part of the brain wants to avoid discomfort at all costs. The more advanced, adult part of your brain can push back against that by taking action. When feeling overwhelmed by fear, ask yourself a simple question: what’s my plan?
That plan can be something as simple as ‘this is how I’m going to get through my day’ or it can be as ambitious as ‘this is how I’m going to fight injustice today.’ But the point is to get out of passive and into active. The idea of fighting these large institutions can be overwhelming, but the idea of not fighting seems a whole lot worse to me.
But when faced with the prospect of seemingly unwinnable fights, my brain goes to…
Guys, this is a serious bummer. It’s really sad to feel like the country and to a larger extent the world has embraced this sort of fear and hatred. If you have any sort of faith in America as a concept or humanity as a whole (which lucky for me - I don’t!), this kind of thing will inevitably shake it. If we let ourselves, we can very easily get to the “what’s the point of fighting?” depression state which - like anxiety - leads us to avoidance and misery and listening to 2000s emo which we can all agree was a time in musical history that never actually happened. (No one named Jimmy ever ate a world! Stop remembering it! It was a fever nightmare!) So although sadness is certainly warranted in this case, how do we stop it from taking over our lives and spurring us to experiment with gunky black eyeliner?
The antidote: community. Whenever I feel overwhelmed by something like this happening, I remember the Mr. Rogers quote: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”
There are lots of other people who are also sad about this. They’re also angry and scared. You are not alone. During the first Trump presidency, I remember lots of community. Remember that dealy with the pink hats? That was the single largest community protest in American history. On a local level, I talked to many first timers at a homeless outreach organization I volunteer with (shout out SELAH!) who were coming out for the first time because they felt sad and powerless and wanted to do something to help someone. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by sadness, it may help to put some energy into finding that local community.
Now, this has a caveat - I’m not sure how much I trust social media as ‘community.’ Yes, it can help us feel connected when we’re alone, especially if we’re geographically stuck in a place where we don’t have access to the community we need. But we need to be careful. Currently, I am on a social media blackout because I don’t think it’s really helping me. People are raging and giving their takes and shouting into the void. I get it. There’s sort of a short-term relief that comes with that. But for me, it doesn’t make me feel any less sad or less angry or less scared. I feel a lot better when I talk to people on the phone or see them in person. So I’m doing more of that. What I’m saying is, expect a call from me. (You changed your number? What the fuck, Todd? How about a heads up? I thought we were bros!)
When we spend a lot of time online venting and arguing, it can bring up…
These. Fucking. People. You see them out there at their idiotic rallies in their stupid red hats with their dumb pretend soldier camo vests and their pre-diabetic limps. Fuck these people, am I right? Sure, it’s a nice respite to watch smart people like Jordan Klepper let them verbally hang themselves so we can revel in their stupidity. But mostly fuck these people. We mock them and rage at them and judge ourselves superior to them. Don’t we wish they would just disappear in a puff of smoke and leave the country to the adults?
Ok, so this one is going to sting a little bit, but…
The antidote: humility. We’re no fucking prize. We’re really not. And no - I’m not saying ‘both sides are the same’ or any of that bullshit. The juvenile cruelty of the MAGA crowd the last decade has been other-level disgusting. But let’s be honest - we’re doing a pretty shitty job of not taking the bait. The discourse I’ve read on the internet from lefties I personally know as good people has not exactly been dripping with compassion. Sure - we’re responding to the level of discourse that the MAGA people brought into the mainstream. Ok. So what - ‘they started it!’? We’re very much in it. And we personally have to own our role in this whole mess.
It’s tempting to go to war with these people. Trust me - I know. My urge to insult and verbally humiliate Trump voters I encounter is strooooong. And as a comedy writer with a chip on my shoulder, I’m really good at it. It’s tantalizing as fuck. But every time I do succumb to the urge to be unkind, I never feel good afterward. Mostly, I feel disgusted with myself. And worse - whenever I attack someone, I reinforce the erroneous ‘the radical left are coming after you!’ talking points. It’s a lose-lose.
When we are wounded, it is harder to be the best versions of ourselves. But I think it is worth trying. Before we hit send on that status update or that comment, we can ask ourselves some questions: what am I doing that’s disgusting to others? Am I insulting someone’s religion? Their family? Their belief system? Am I name-calling strangers on the internet or (worse) in person? Am I letting my disgust cause me to be the worst version of myself? Especially in hard times, it matters how we show up. Because being our true, authentic selves is the only path to…
It is tough to feel joyful these days. It feels like the world has been burning for a long time. All of our trauma buttons are being pushed by this election, particularly for immigrants and trans folks and women and anyone who has been assaulted and then let down by the system. It is a hard time for compassion.
In hard times, we need to fight for joy. We need to put on shows with our bands and celebrate our birthdays and play the shit out of peekaboo with our baby nephews. Yes, we need to fight for justice and protest and stand up for marginalized people in our communities and not give up the fight. But we also need to find the joy in our lives. We can’t let our anger and fear and sadness and disgust snuff out the flame of joy. Because that’s the whole fucking point of all this, right? We vote the way we do because we want everyone to have the same rights to pursue joy in whatever way they choose. We need to live that as long as we can.
Also - we need to watch Inside Out again! It rules. The second one is also really good! Wait until you meet Anxiety!
Boogie Writes is a completely independent endeavor by one hard-working funnyman trying to make his way in the world today (which takes everything you’ve got.) If you like what you read, please subscribe, support, and tell a friend! Also - do you need advice? Of course you do! Send your queries to brendan@brendanboogie.com with “Dear Boogie” in the subject and get some solid or at least passable advice!