Doomscrolling

After what happened in the US on January 20^th and subsequently, I have found myself constantly scrolling through assorted writings on Substack, where a large number of reasonably literate Americans, and some very astute Australians (e.g. John Quiggin, Tim Dunlop) are fulminating, or at least aghast at the idiotic petulance from the Mango Mussolini. I also recently heard this sort of scrolling being appropriately termed ‘doomscrolling’. This is defined as: “The act of spending too much time reading negative news online, especially on social media”. As Substack is a form of social media to which I was recently introduced by my son, I am guilty as charged.

It has been fascinating and disturbing to see the parallels between the Trump ‘administration’ and that of Hitler’s nazi administration in 1933 Germany. While I, like most people are aware of the worst of the nazi’s appalling behaviour, until recently I had not heard of any of the ludicrous cockups of the Trump cabal. The first one was when they sacked all the workers from the National Nuclear Security Administration in the Energy Department, before someone pointed out to the Trumpian halfwits, that these people are responsible for designing, building, and most importantly, overseeing the safety of the US nuclear weapons stockpile¹. The second one is the similar firing and rehiring of employees involved in the federal response to the large H5N1 avian flu outbreak².

It is impossible not to shake your head in disbelief at the incompetence of the Trump ‘administration’. However, while many have protested, the rest need to do something about Trump, or the US will cease to exist, even as a half-arsed democracy.

Sources

1. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g3nrx1dq5o
2. https://www.newsweek.com/usda-admits-mistakenly-firing-bird-flu-officials-working-rehire-them-2032992