Happy To Hurt You
They didn't just vote that way. They enjoyed it.
Welcome to Cheaper Than Therapy, a newsletter for 80s babies.
Smug superiority has never worked for me. It’s been a cornerstone of my singlehood reframing work. It’s the long table of marrieds looking down on Bridget Jones, it’s the dating advice that’s stupid and useless but said with such confidence. It’s the arrogant, unfounded belief that I am better than you, for whatever reason I choose to elevate myself. It’s a weird amount of comfort in something that isn’t real. We just lost an election of self-interest because it’s a more effective strategy than convincing people to collectively care about others—and it’s not just that people behaved with cruel disregard, it’s that they did it smiling. Two weeks ago I would have written something about my faith in the inherent goodness of people. I don’t believe in that anymore. There’s not enough of it to run a country.
Please don’t take my tone for hopelessness, and please don’t retreat into futility. I’m asking these things of you and me simultaneously. While my motivation until now was the future of democracy, and caring for the collective, of which I’m a part but certainly privileged within, I am no longer motivated to do the obviously right thing. Now I just want to watch the smugness burn.