Everyone Just Calm the Hell Down
If 2017 has taught us anything, it’s that rage doesn’t matter.
Paranoia, paranoia
Everybody’s coming to get me
Just say you never met me
I’m going underground with the moles, digging holes— Harvey Danger, Flagpole Sitta.
2017 was a bad year. It wasn’t the worst year America has ever had, nor will it be the last bad year we will ever have. 2001 was terrible. So was 1929. 1941 ended on a rotten note. 1862 sucked bad, too. The point is, this country has seen lots of terrible years. We all just need to calm the Hell down.
There is no War on Christmas. You can wish whatever you want to whomever you want, whenever you want. This is a free country. It’s only the blowhards at Fox News who say otherwise. And Trump, too, though he just does what Fox News tells him to. Everyone just needs to calm the Hell down.
White males are NOT in danger of losing their culture, or the power, or their privilege, or their religion, or their identity. Lawyers, doctors, business tycoons, real estate moguls, A-list actors, Congressmen — still all overwhelmingly pasty white males. Ditto for college campuses, white collar fields, skilled trades, the entire Midwest, and every conceivable position of power from Washington State to Washington, D.C. We all just need to calm the Hell down.
Christians, you can calm the Hell down, too. Nobody is coming for your Churches. Sharia Law is not on the verge of consuming your town. Nobody is persecuting you. The other day I went to this Baptist Church in Conover, North Carolina (a town exactly as small as you think it is). They had a guest speaker who tried to convince the parishioners that Christianity was superior to Islam, as if the closest Mosque wasn’t 125 miles away. It was batshit crazy, though many of the folks in the Church looked relieved, as if somehow Islam’s influence looms in rural Appalachia.
There may actually be a Deep State, though we need to calm the Hell down about that, too. There has always been a Deep State in some way shape or form. Money has always ruled the world. Greed and power have always motivated awful people to do awful things. Politicians have always lied to us. Name one period in American history where politicians were straight with the American people, and I’ll show you a time you mythologize and misunderstand.
Calm the Hell down about Fake News, too, please. Yes, journalism is biased. Yes, journalists need to be more professional and do a better job fact checking, and news outlets like Fox and CNN need to report the Goddamned news instead of just having partisans debate current events (which is totally different). Everyone needs to do a better job, and nobody is innocent. Nobody. Still — calm the Hell down about it.
Fellow Liberals, we need not freak the Hell out over every little thing, because when we do, our collective freak outs just become white noise. There’s an article on Medium right now about the song “Baby, it’s Cold Outside” and how the real issue is slut-shaming, because it is definitely worth our collective energy to get worked up about a holiday duet. Folks, feminist icon Camille Paglia famously got into a screaming match with Patti Smith about the Rolling Stone’s hit song “Under My Thumb.” She said: “Yes, yes, the lyrics are sexist, but this is a great song. This is a work of art.” And she’s right. It is. Everyone needs to calm the Hell down. There is actual, real world, Roy Moore-level sexist nonsense happening. There’s no need to bring Dean Martin into this. The man’s been dead for 20 years.
And we all really, really need to calm the Hell down about Donald John Trump, too. I’m just as guilty as anyone else. There’s no way a third-rate reality TV show hack takes us down the way we worry he will. We’ve had stupid, race-baiting narcissists in the White House before. We will have them there again. He is not worth that level of energy.
The outrage against Trump is probably the best example I can offer as to why we all need to calm the Hell down. For the past 18 months, the media has been going bananas about this clown. He still got elected. He’s still in office. For the past year, CNN and social media sites like Twitter simply won’t shut the Hell up about Russian collusion. He’s still in office. He’s still passing tax bills. He’s still dividing the country with his tweets. He’s still employing Kellyanne Conway.
It’s not that our rage is not deserved. It’s that it doesn’t serve a point. It is ineffective. The McResistance, which the other side has been calling it, has utterly failed. Proponents will argue that it is because of the Resistance that the Travel Ban was struck down, or that various staffers in the Trump Regime have been fired, or that Trump still hasn’t built that Wall, or that Mueller is on the prowl. No real evidence to support these assertions, though.
This is simply a case of “post hoc ergo propter hoc” — Latin for “after this, therefore because of this,” a logical fallacy that occurs when we think two unrelated things cause one another. The truth is, Trump’s Travel Ban got struck down because a court found it unconstitutional, not because of clever memes or angry protests. Trump has fired some people for a variety of reasons, the Wall is a boondoggle, and Mueller is going to conduct his investigation regardless of whether Twitter wants him to or not. This is the freaking Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice, not some trending Facebook group. Public opinion won’t influence their findings, nor should it.
So yes, all Hell is breaking loose. This is the End Times. Millennials are killing everything they get their entitled little mittens on, and America stands on the precipice of a new Civil War. Trump is one Twitter rant away from nuking North Korea, and the only logical conclusion to this entire mess is the inevitable zombie outbreak that will finally kill us all. Still, everyone needs to calm the Hell down.
I’m not saying we should ignore. I’m not saying we should turn the other cheek. I’m not saying we should pretend everything is okay. There are real social and political and religious and cultural issues that simply must be addressed. But we need to remain focused, we need to remain vigilant, and we need to be calm about it. Anger makes people stupid. Just look at Twitter.
2017 has taught me one thing, which is that unfocused rage has absolutely no value. We raged to keep Net Neutrality intact. It’s gone now. We’ve raged against Nazis, too. Yes, a few of them got outed on Facebook and some folks lost their jobs. If you think this defeated bigotry in America, you are divorced from reality.
Robert Mueller will find something, or he won’t, irrespective of our angst. Congress will keep on being Congress, irrespective of our rage. They have like a 10% approval rating and still they behave like Bond villains. Trump will keep being Trump, irrespective of our scorn. His approval rating sank to 35% the other day. He’s still tweeting. He’s still got control of the nuclear missiles. We all need to calm the Hell down.
Calm does not mean accept. Calm does not mean surrender. Calm is how heroes act in the face of overwhelming odds. Calm helped Londoners get through the Blitz. Calm helped Gandhi defy an Empire. We have the capacity to do this, as well, but we have to make a conscious choice to do so.
Anger, as an emotion, is relatively simple. It taps into ancient parts of the brain. It is primitive. It is not evolved. Let’s go the other route, and choose rational thinking. It’s a lot more involved, but so much more rewarding. 2017, for many, was the Year of Anger. Let’s try another way. Let’s make 2018 the Year of Thinking. After all — what do we have to lose?
If this article did not send you into a blind rage, you might enjoy:
What Star Wars Can Teach Us About the Value of Setting Goals
You’re Not Entitled to Your Stupid Opinion
Is Facebook Depression a Thing?
It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year — Unless You’re Mentally Ill, in Which Case, Not So Much.
