Reading List: If You'd Shown Me These Headlines on Election Night 2016, I'm Pretty Sure I Would Have Internally Combusted Into Dust.
Dearests! Did you know we’re only halfway through January and that it is still only 2021? Hahahahaha time has no meaning and we’re stuck in an endless loop.
Anyhoo, today’s Missive is chock-full of articles that will likely freak you out a bit, because there’s not a lot out there that isn’t scary right now—threw in some Alexandra Petri and McSweeney’s for a treat at the bottom, because at least their portrayals of our current hellscape are funny—but I wanted to pass on some advice from Friend of the Missive (and co-founder of Odd Salon) Tre Balchowsky on how to get through the next week:
Sign off of all social media. Really. No one needs to read what everyone is saying about what people who are actual reporters are saying about people who are actually involved in thing. No one.
Pick two or three news outlets and read them 2 or 3 times a day. Yup. That’s it. Not ever 30 min. Not hitting the refresh button. If you need to be better informed than that for work reasons, delegate and share the work.
Drink water. Lots of it
No food shaming. You can eat whatever the f!ck you want to. But also, try to get some veggies, because they make your brain work.
Get outside and away from screens.
Thank you Tre for reminding us that we are not required to drink from the news fire hose if we don’t need to.
TO THE LONGREADS!
Claire Atkinson and Sean Czarnecki, Trump administration staffers are getting snubbed while hunting for jobs. One recruiter tried to place 6 of them and couldn't land any interviews. (Business Insider) - All I can say? GOOD.
Paul Overberg, Jon Kamp and Daniel Michaels, The Covid-19 Death Toll Is Even Worse Than It Looks (The Wall Street Journal) - Welp, “More than 2.8 million people have lost their lives due to the pandemic, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from 59 countries and jurisdictions.”
Elizabeth Dias and Ruth Graham, How White Evangelical Christians Fused With Trump Extremism (The New York Times) - Fundamentalist religion, whether it be Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Mormon, Scientology, you name it, is a bad thing, full stop. Mating fundamentalist religious tendencies with a death cult is absolutely terrifying.
Lyz Lenz, Heaven Invade: Going to a gun show and to church after a violent insurrection (Men Yell At Me) - As I said above. And this a gorgeous meditation on it in one of its most insidious forms, “the violence of white silence.”
Eric Boehlert, Politico's Ben Shapiro debacle — zero lessons learned from the Trump era (Press Run) - I am so so so sick of both sides-ism on an galldarned insurrection after four years of a country held hostage by the whims of a narcissist, and have few words for the fact that POLITICO had Ben Shapiro write a guest Playbook column in this week of all weeks. But luckily Eric Boehlert has many, and they’re much more intellectually persuasive than me swearing at my laundry hamper.
Ben Jacobs and Olivia Nuzzi, Ted Cruz’s Former Staffers Are ‘Disgusted’ by His New Low for Trump (Intelligencer) - Or, I dunno, they could have listened to their boss’s former Princeton roommate all these years. But I am glad that some staffers are coming to their senses.
Joshua Kaplan and Joaquin Sapien, “No One Took Us Seriously”: Black Cops Warned About Racist Capitol Police Officers for Years (ProPublica) - Content warning: racist language and threats and structural white supremacy in a law enforcement organization that is tasked with protecting the U.S. Capitol.
Alexandra Petri, Now is not the time to point fingers, Julius Caesar. Now is the time for healing. (The Washington Post) - I’ve said it before and I will say it again: Alexandra Petri is one of the best satirical writers of our day. And I want to be her friend. I mean, come on, LOOK AT THIS EXCERPT:
Mike Langley, Asking Me To Stop Beating You With This Sock Full Of Quarters Will Only Further Divide Our Nation (McSweeney’s) - We cry because it’s true.
That’s it, that’s all. Be kind to each other.
xoxo Amy