The world has been ending in my head for years.
Mental armageddon began in 2016 with the first “How did he get elected?” Being politically pessimistic is a trait of my upbringing. I came of age in a house where NPR hosts never let me get too far away from whatever American foreign policy decision was currently wrecking a developing nation, where my parents were complaining about lack of trust in higher education over dinner.
Dr. Mom and Dr. Dad raised me informed – the bad, the meteoric and the democracy-ending. I’ve grown up amid the worsening. I’ve heard the reporters connect one massive screw-up to another, detailing a pattern that anyone who’s paying attention calls the end of a better American era.
Even worse, I’ve long been the kind of person who just can’t laugh about any of it – not that dumb thing President Donald Trump said in an interview, nor that ridiculous new bill put forth in congress. When Trump rambles, my mind jumps to how his confused blubbering makes it easier for other world leaders to manipulate him into servitude. When I see those outrageous bills, I think of how much work it took to forge and fortify all the progress now being brushed away.
But recently, I’ve been giggling a bit more. When Trump administration officials bullied Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy for not wearing a suit to the White House, I smiled at the absurdity of it. When I heard that the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic was added to a Signal group chat with some of the most powerful people in the country as they discussed highly classified war plans, I was laughing out loud.
Slap-happiness might be the best way to describe it, and I’m sure it’s a common feeling. I’m too tired to fight back, even mentally. My best form of resistance is laughing in the phone-screen faces of people I’ll never meet. The only thing I’m willing to give up now is the energy it takes to laugh a little bit – to treat this like it’s exactly as deranged as it really is.
In the past, I’ve labeled political humor cheap and overused. Now, it’s resistance. When I see Jimmy Fallon making fun of the president, I think how lucky he is to still be able to say things like that from a position of power. When “Saturday Night Live” spends the entire Weekend Update joking about our situation, I get it. This is how we get the message out to each other: We’re not going to forget this isn’t normal.
A friend once told me that sometimes to pull your head out of your you-know-what, you’ve got to push it all the way through. We’re in it now. Myriad attacks, on everything from DEI to women’s suffrage, aim to pull us apart. We might as well laugh together.