Are You As Angry As I Am?

If not, why not?

*There’s a little profanity in this post. Apologies in advance, but sometimes a little cursing is cheaper than therapy.

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Photo by Braxton Apana on Unsplash

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I’ve always been a night owl. But I haven’t slept well lately. I’ve been getting three or four hours of sleep a night. During the day, I’m walking around in a fog. I’ve tried to pinpoint what’s going on, and I think I’ve figured it out.

At first, I thought it was because I was worried about what would come next. Like anyone paying attention, I’m experiencing a general feeling of uncertainty. My problem is that I know enough about how the economy works to know when something bad is on the horizon.

After all, in my former life, I saw a few things. Trying to trade options on treasury futures on Black Monday nearly gave me an ulcer. A decade later, the Long Term Capital Management bailout came. I moved to New York City just in time to see the internet bubble burst and 9/11. I ran a trading desk through multiple flash crashes, not to mention the Great Financial Crisis. 

So I’ve seen enough to know what happens when super-smart people with power do stupid shit. This is why I get extremely worried when I see irresponsible and ignorant people with power do stupid shit. But while this may have something to do with my lack of sleep, I believe something else is going on. It’s not so much that I’m worried. It’s that I am angry.

What I'm experiencing isn't the type of anger that leads to violence. It's the kind of annoyed hostility that makes it next to impossible to stomach the people that I know, with one hundred percent certainty, voted for Donald Trump.

This morning in the grocery store I heard an elderly man say if JD Vance could become president after Trump “That would give us twelve straight years!” To which the guy he said this to—a store employee, mind you—responded by saying, “That would be fantastic!” Then the elderly guy said something to the effect of, “It won’t matter to me, I’m 78, so I’ll be gone anyway!” Then they both had a big laugh. I would never do this, but I got so angry I thought about throwing a sweet potato at one of them.

I was on a phone call the other day when I put two and two together. A few years ago, I decided to take my Social Security benefits. Since I maxed out on FICA for most of my adult life, I receive close to the maximum amount each month. It’s not a ton of money, but it pays the rent and a few bills. Something said during the phone call reminded me it was the day my Social Security deposit usually landed.

And for the first time, I wondered: What if they don’t pay me? What if Elon Musk stops Social Security? At that moment, the uncertainty hit me like a brick. My entire financial situation raced through my mind.

A scene from The Big Lebowski, one of my favorite films. For the record, I do not own a handgun. Yet.

I was so freaked out by the thought of not getting my Social Security deposit, I almost didn’t want to check my app. But I paused the conversation after a minute or two, checked my bank, and breathed a sigh of relief. The money was there.

But what if it hadn’t been? What if a chunk of my monthly income came to a screeching halt, all because Trump, Elon Musk, or some Project 2025 asshole decided they needed my money to pay for a tax cut. What the hell would I do?

We’re not wealthy people. We’re regular folks with two kids in college. My wife and I started a small botanical business a few months ago. It keeps us busy, but it will be a while before we turn a profit, if ever. I haven’t done my taxes yet, but I doubt this newsletter will break even. I guarantee you that thinking about whether the government will steal money from me is one of the reasons I’m only sleeping four hours a night.

I am not angry with everyone though. I’m angry with the Democrats still talking about bipartisanship as if that’s something Republicans want. I’m angry that Biden didn’t do more to hold Trump accountable.

But I'm mad as hell with people who put us in the mess. I’m angry because we told them in every way possible what would happen, and they wouldn’t listen. Most of them are still convinced they made the right choice. They’re still cosplaying in their red hats and flying silly flags from their balconies. They’re oblivious to how terrible things are about to get for them.

In a recent post,

Heather Cox Richardson

(by the way, I highly recommend her Substack) referenced an article by James Marriott of The Sunday Times. He has the smartest take I’ve seen on this phenomenon:

[A]n underrated factor in modern irrationality and zealotry is the West's stability. Our society has been peaceful and healthy for so long that for many people serious disaster has become inconceivable. You can rattle the bars of the cage as fiercely as you like but you will never actually escape the comfort of the zoo.

Those ruddy, bull-necked Americans who parade around in amateur militia groups and brandish Nazi symbols do so partly because they are unable to conceive of what life would actually be like in a fascist state. Dabblers in homeopathy cannot really comprehend a society without modern medicine.

The supporters of autocracy who fawn at the feet of the anti-democratic "thinker" Curtis Yarvin and cheer when Donald Trump suggests that "He who saves his country does not violate any law" have no serious understanding of what it means to live under an autocratic government.

That’s the thing: people are so used to things operating on impulse drive, that they never consider that if the wrong people get their hands on the controls—which is what has happened—everything can stop on a dime.

The ones who voted for Trump never gave a second thought to what a world without EBT, WIC, Head Start, or free lunch for children would mean for them. Farmers who voted for this never thought about how cutting off food for starving people in other countries would affect them.

They voted us into this political shit show thinking the awfulness would only affect Black people, brown people, LGBTQ+ people, or whoever else they perceived was taking what they think of as theirs. They think of misery like it’s a laser beam that only gets pointed at the undeserving.

Thank God My Mother Isn’t Around to See This

A lot of them are traipsing around where I live, with their red caps and silly flags. They’re still convinced they made the right choice. But some of them are starting to realize that things are about to get worse, not just for “the woke mob” or “illegals” but for them, too.

On social media, I’ve started to see videos of Trump supporters who are stunned now that the consequences of their vote have hit them between the eyes. They’re starting to notice that groceries aren’t getting any cheaper, and on top of that, they might lose something. That isn’t how they thought this would work.

The fact that they've had a come-to-Jesus moment doesn’t make me feel sorry for them. These same people were fine with Trump when they thought he’d only hurt people they didn’t care about. The only reason they’re concerned now is because things are starting to look bad for them. That doesn't just make me angry, it disgusts me.

Before he passed away, I’d listen to Joe Madison’s morning talk show while driving my kids to school. Some of the people who called his show were angry, just like me. After letting them say their piece, Madison would ask, “What are you going to do about it?”

I’ve been asking myself that question. I guess I can volunteer when the midterms come around, assuming we still have a democracy. I can boycott businesses, but so many are falling in line, the good ones are harder to find. I suppose writing and sharing my opinions counts for something.

But none of this feels like enough. And that makes me angry, too.

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