Trump and Xenophobia

As I just wrote in Facebook, where I blocked a friend of a friend who said that "Muslims should never be allowed into this country."

Every other time I've seen a politician compared to Hitler, it's been pretty ridiculous. Godwin's Law exists for a reason. With Trump, some of those comparisons strike a little closer to the target. His popularity honestly frightens me a little; increasingly so as time progresses and he retains that popularity.

Am I overly worried? How likely do you think it is that he'll be elected? If he is, are we actually going to see the kind of racist policies that he's advocating implemented? Could something like the Japense internment camps of World War II happen again with Muslims?

The things I'm seeing expressed by a lot of people in this country really unnerve me. I think it's more and more important that I, and those who feel as I do, are vocal about that discomfort. Racism and xenophobia should not be socially acceptable under any circumstances. Saying otherwise merits a contradictory response to that effect and quite possibly addition to my blocked list.

These comparisons of Trump to other well known xenophobic leaders are funny at the moment. But they're only funny until they're not. I hope we never get to that point. It still seems really unlikely to me that we will. But unexpected and horrible things have happened in this country before.

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I'm trying to balance numerous things lately as I approach schoolwork.

I'm trying to listen more to my physical and mental state and not force myself to work when I won't be productive. I'm trying to sleep when I'm tired and work when I'm clearheaded, rather than the reverse. (I napped for four hours early today between my meeting with student services and my class this evening.) I'm trying to accept my limits, as well as accept the possibility that I may not be able to work within my limits and meet my responsibilities. I'm also trying to balance those realizations against a worry that I'll use them an an excuse to not work when I should be working, or see them as an excuse to give up on what I'm doing here entirely.

I told Danae that sometimes I worry that my limitations are somehow performative with myself as an audience. That I'm building up justifications to leave the stressful situation I'm in. "That's not a productive line of thought," she said. I think that regardless of whether it's correct or not, she's right. I'm trying to be a little bit less self-analytical in that area, which is odd for someone as prone to deep introspection as I am. Rather, I'm trying to keep abreast of how I'm feeling on the surface, in terms of energy level, state of mind, and physical needs, and react to those things in a way that lets me apply the resources available to me to my work.

I have a fifteen to twenty minute presentation tomorrow that I did slides for last night. I'm not that happy with it, but I accept it. I'll practice a few times tonight and tomorrow morning. My urban social justice paper is due on Monday and I have not yet even begun on it. I'll dig into that tomorrow after my presentation and it will be as good as it will be. I should have been working on it for a long time already, and I'm trying not to feel bad about what has passed, and think about the future instead.

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I had a strange experience in the seminar today; an altering of visual perception. Someone was wearing a white and blue plaid shirt and gradually it seemed like the contrast of the blue and white was getting stronger and sharper. Then everything in the room seemed like it was more sharply defined than usual. It was accompanied by a little bit of vertigo. I assumed it was the escitalopram, and looking up the side effects whirling and spinning sensations are some of the less common ones. There are visual ones too, though nothing described quite that way, so I'm not sure what the cause was. It wasn't exactly unpleasant I suppose, but I'll mention it to the psychiatric nurse when I talk to her again. I don't like that feeling of some external thing I'm not controlling acting on my perceptions.

I'm still feeling socially avoidant. This was my last session of that class and the professor is buying everyone a drink at a local pub. I don't drink, I don't like the noisy conditions of most pubs, I don't feel like I really know anyone in the class very well, and I have so much work to do still: I decided to just head home. Where I haven't actually started doing work yet, so I think part of that decision was just wanting to be somewhere familiar and safe instead of in an environment that I know I'm not likely to enjoy, even though I feel anxious about not being social with my peers this semester. This is not like the me of the last four or five years; instead, it's a lot like the me that existed before I split up with my ex and learned to be social. I do not like this. Not at all.