Thread by @ElieNYC

The Tao of Elie Giving A Crap.

I feel like articulating my personal map for deciding what to care about and how desperately to care about it.

This list just works for me (more or less). It may or may not work for you. I offer this in the spirit of combating "Outrage Fatigue."

Premise 1: Trump cannot be removed from office without 2/3rds of the Senate.
Premise 2: Republican Senators desire the votes of Trump's racist, misogynist base.
Therefore: Trump will remain in office. All concerns aimed at removing Trump from office are *less* important to me.

If you accept those premises, and the logical conclusions that follow from them, a hierarchy of caring emerges.

1. Human suffering: Trump causes real human suffering and all available efforts should be deployed to obstruct or lessen the human suffering Trump is able to cause.

2. Dead-hand control through the courts/The Constitution: This gets elevated in part because of my job. People might actually listen to me about this, so I care about this more than things that are similarly important but people will not listen to me about. Like for instance...

3. Policies of white supremacy: Obviously there is a lot of overlap here. One of the ways Trump induces human suffering is through policies of white supremacy. But, I feel I have a responsibility to point out Trump's relentless racism where I can.

4. Policies of misogyny: This is why ordinal lists are bad. Gun to head, I'd have to admit that the sexism is more destructive in this country that the racism. But I see the racism a little more readily, and feel marginally more confident talking about it.

But the point here is that all of these things are more important to me, day-in, day-out, then everything I'm going to list after. This is my top tier. This takes up 90% of my outrage. Everything else is fighting for scraps.

5. Gaslighting: There are four lights. There are four lights. That video is fake, SHS. There are four lights.

6. Attack on norms. I've learned from @mikeduncan work that once undone, political norms cannot easily be resurrected. We should protect what few Trump has not already destroyed.

7. Actual crimes. Notice how low this is? Go back to my premises. His crimes, while frustrating, are not going to remove him from power. So if his crimes do not cause additional human suffering, I care less about them than I care about other things. e.g his tax returns.

8. Potential/threatened crimes: See above. This is about where the Russia probe ranks for me. Though I am compelled to talk about it more that this, because of my job. But I don't go to bed thinking about how Putin is getting away with it.

9. Everything else. We've covered 99% of my outrage meter. That leaves only a tiny bit let for all the other things Trump destroys almost daily, including: the environment, economic fairness, guns, corporate regulation, net neutrality.

All of that is super important, and I try to elevate these concerns when his actions or inactions directly lead to human suffering that I can see. These are the constituent parts of the dastardly whole. But on a day-to-day basis, I'm out of rage by the time I get to these issues.

Again, this is just my list. But I find it's helpful to *have* one. I find it's helpful to have *thought through* one. It makes me feel more moored, and less susceptible to being swept up by the outrage of the day -- as there is almost literally a new one every freaking day.

It's how I combat my own "outrage fatigue." Having a list helps me remember when I'm supposed to go to the mattresses, and when I'm supposed to go to bed.

We've got at least two more years of this. NOBODY can let go of the rope yet. /FIN