They Like Us Politically Angry

I hate politics.

I hate the smoke and mirrors.
I hate the bait and switch.
I hate how every cycle promises accountability and delivers exhaustion.
I hate how marginalized people are always at the bottom of the wreckage while everyone else argues about framing, language, and who sounds most morally correct online.

I hate Trump’s commitment to an “us vs. them” America, and how division is intentionally cultivated and rewarded.

This is not theoretical.

Last week in Minneapolis, an ICE agent fatally shot a 37-year-old woman.

And once again, the reaction followed a familiar script. Polarization. Outrage. Anger snapping into place as the primary lens through which everything gets interpreted. Not because anyone demands it of us, but because anger is always there. Always available. Always rewarded.

But not without a price.

A nervous system cannot live in constant activation without consequences.

Chronic exposure to threat increases stress hormones and narrows cognitive flexibility. Anger feels clarifying, but neurologically, it’s constricting. The more activated we stay, the worse we get at complex thinking, collaboration, and empathy. Everything becomes urgent. Everything becomes binary. A permanent red alert. A doom-spiral.

This isn’t about pretending I don’t feel anger.
It’s about refusing to stay there.

I could live in that rage. I could let it sharpen me into something perpetually reactive.

Or I could decide, deliberately, what I want more of.

That choice is not denial.
It is refusal.

Refusal to let a system that thrives on venom and despair consume my attention.
Refusal to confuse constant agitation with meaningful action.
Refusal to organize my inner life around outrage.

I also need to say this plainly. The ability to step back is a privilege.

People who are directly impacted by political decisions do not get to opt out. Their bodies, families, safety, healthcare, immigration status, and livelihoods are on the line whether they want them to be or not. I don’t minimize that. I don’t romanticize distance. And I don’t confuse my choice with universal wisdom.

At the same time, the loudest outrage often comes from people online with the least at stake.

People insulated enough to argue, post, perform, and log off.

Which is why so much of it starts to feel like playing store with fake currency.

Lots of motion.
Lots of moral theater.
Very little material exchange.

No rent paid.
No safety secured.
No agency restored.

That doesn’t mean caring is wrong. It means mistaking expression for impact is easy. Especially when platforms reward heat over help, and spectacle over substance. Especially when division is profitable.

I don’t trust a system that profits off division while the most vulnerable people absorb the consequences. I don’t trust environments that equate volume with virtue. And I don’t believe my usefulness is proportional to how inflamed I stay.

So I’m making a different choice.

I still vote.
I still donate.
I still show up where my presence actually makes contact.
I still protect the people I love.
I still name injustice when silence would be harm.

What I do not do anymore is let my attention be farmed by endless performance loops that exhaust everyone and change very little. I am done being outrage-adjacent but impact-light.

Opting out of performance is not the same as opting out of responsibility.

I am choosing to build something else. On purpose.

More kindness.
More groundedness.
More aliveness.
More do-able good.

More lightness that does not deny the darkness but refuses to live inside it.

I just know I want to live a life that reflects what I want more of. And I am no longer willing to outsource that decision to outrage algorithms and chaos merchants.

Screw being useful to systems that thrive on my exhaustion.