Give Me Sarcasm and Empathy Straight into My Veins
I need some sarcasm with my world is getting turned upside-down news.
When there's daily (if not hourly) updates of crazy proclamations from our southern neighbour and their dictator in chief, it's difficult not to get overwhelmed by it all. And yet unplugging completely and putting my head in the sand (not something ostriches actually do really) isn't a great way to be informed about what's happening in the world.
As a Canadian, I didn't vote for Trump. And I can't vote him out. But I can learn enough so I can have empathy for those struggling with the chaos, fear, and direct attack on people's existence he sows and enables.
My current favourite newsletter to read is Jeff Tiedrich's "everyone is entitled to my opinion", which unfortunately is on Substack, but I plug my nose and read it anyway.
I need some sarcasm with my world is getting turned upside-down news, which is why I also love The Daily Show and John Oliver's Last Week Tonight (which is finally coming back for it's 12th season mid-February, 2025).
When someone's an idiot (whatever political stripe), I want it called out that they're an idiot. Like this great phrase:
wow! the Master Negotiator did it — he got Mexico to deploy thousands of troops to the border! three cheers for Donny Dealmaker, right?wrong, because ten thousand Mexican troops are already at the border — Joe Biden made that deal four years ago. quietly, with no fanfare — and without almost tanking the world’s economy. that’s the difference between a leader and a buffoon.
or this paragraph on the same thing happening with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau:
it was the exact same deal Donny cut with Mexico. Canada agreed to send ten thousand troops to their border.
oh by the way, those ten thousand Canadian troops? they’re already at the border — thanks to a deal previously negotiated by Joe Biden.
Donny’s deal also calls for Canada to spend $1.3 billion on border security — money that they’d already agreed to spend, after cutting a deal with you’ll never guess who.
and on the new fentanyl czar Trudeau promised Trump:
you could imagine Trudeau on the phone with Donny, going ‘yeah sure, a fentanyl czar’ while rolling his eyes and miming jerkoff motions with one hand — and then calling out to the next rando to walk past his office door, ‘hey Gordie, you want to be fentanyl czar?’
Bonus points for grabbing the most obvious fentanyl czar team from Canadian history:
Empathy can be a powerful drug if you take it
I've heard people talking about Trump 2.0 from a business and financial perspective as being good because disruption and times of uncertainty sharpen us, help us be more efficient, not be so wasteful, etc. and we come out the other side stronger. Which is maybe good for markets, fourth quarter projections, or your RRSP that you're hoping to grow over the next 10 years.
But I think if those of us who aren't directly affected by Trump's chaos dig a little deeper and listen to the stories of people on the ground who actually are affected by the chaos and hate he's sowing, I hope we can be a little less excited about disruption for disruption's sake, and more empathetic to the stories of people scared that Trump 2.0 is actively trying to erase their community from existence, deny that they even exist, or pull funding from aid that helps locally and globally.
Disruption is also where evil and greed are able to take root because we're so distracted by everything going on at the surface level. Even if your house is going to weather the storm that shall pass, maybe your neighbour's won't? And that should be enough to pause on the giddy possibilities for what Trump 2.0 might bring.