<<shudder>>

The anxiety of the last few years is ratcheting up like crazy now. These days leading up to Election Day feel almost unbearable. Though I’ve been very aware of how the anxiety has affected me—changes in my temperament, sleep, work habits, concentration, the effect of stress on my body, etc.—I think I’ve been fairly good at calming my mind from time to time, at finding a bit of equanimity, at least intermittently. Pushing through.

But something happened this week that has me truly shaken. Someone I know, not a close friend, but someone I’ve worked with pretty closely, went full-bore glassy-eyed MAGA cult. Like true believer “I’ve seen the light and let me tell you the good news!”

For the most part, my take on MAGA, even with all the insanity since 2016, has been that they’re a version of the same fearful, small-minded faction of Republicans and religious fanatics we’ve been fighting off my whole life; they’re feeling their power, and they’ve gotten a lot louder, but they’re nothing new. But this person’s conversion seems to signal something novel and uniquely sinister. This is not someone who lives in the exurbs of Ohio and is afraid of drag queens, this person is someone squarely in MY world. I’m having trouble letting it go and moving on.