Fighting Despair: The Persistent Challenge

I’m publishing this series of articles to share and discuss my ruminations on coping with a troubled and messy world. You can “follow” me to never miss an article.

Michelle Goldberg’s thoughts couldn’t be more relevant to our times, and yet they’re more difficult than ever to put into practice[i]. She thereby lays out the supreme challenge facing us:

“Before we can fight authoritarianism, we have to fight fatalism. My great hope for 2024 is that anti-Trump Americans can transcend exhaustion, burnout, and self-protective pessimism to mobilize once again for the latest most important election of our lifetimes.”

That such a task is inordinately difficult, if not seemingly impossible, is made abundantly clear by a feature article on the front page of The New York Times[ii]. Thus, while many of Trump’s supporters are able to acknowledge that he indeed did commit serious crimes, many more believe that the charges were Politically motivated, and thus deserve to be dropped. The vast majority of Democrats naturally believe the exact opposite.

One of the most important factors at play is Education:

“Among those with a college degree, 64 percent believe Mr. Trump has been charged because he committed crimes. Those without a college education take the opposite view. 54 percent of…