The most surprising thing about reading the Trump book is that I can stomach it because I can’t listen to Donald Trump speak anymore. I can’t read his tweets. I can’t stand hearing people justify his actions. I get terribly angry at any of it. It’s not worth it.

The flip side of that coin is my social media feed. I have cultivated a stream of outrage on Facebook. My friends are screaming at him constantly. He’s throwing teargas at children and locking them in cages. You know the Holocaust didn’t start all at once, it was a gradual erosion of freedoms. He’s empowering white nationalists. He’s destroying the press.

I’m not saying that these things aren’t true but I think that there’s a limit to the utility of outrage.

I also understand that I’m saying this as a cis-gendered white male. I recognize that none of his policies will negatively affect me. Quite the opposite, in fact. But none of my LGBTQ, POC, or non-Christian friends have been moved to a certain section of the city, forced to give up their passport, or sew special symbols onto their clothing. I wrote something on this blog called Fuck Donald Trump and Fuck You If You Still Support Him and the secret police hasn’t murdered me.

Yes, our situation is dire but cries of fascism are a bit premature. That’s the feeling I get from reading Bob Woodward’s Fear, anyway, though I’m only a hundred pages in. It feels like I’m taking a break from a protest march and sitting in on a meeting in the White House.

I’ll give an example. The last chapter I read dealt with the unending war in Afghanistan, which is a real problem with no criteria for the war being won or lost. Obama’s policy was to minimize troops but the fact of the matter is, we can’t leave without it being a hotbed of terrorist activity. Donald Trump’s position before he became president was – and I’m paraphrasing – “Get us out of this war! Sad!” Pull our troops out. That’s all he wanted. But he had generals who had to tell him – and he doesn’t like being contradicted – Mr. President, we can’t really do that.

I’m oversimplifying everything here but this book has calmed me down.

Look, I’m not reading it and thinking, “Oh man, I really underestimated President Trump, he’s got an unorthodox way of doing things but he gets things done!” No, he’s an incurious asshole who has no idea what he’s talking about. His supporters liked to say he’s playing 3D chess, i.e. he’s making moves that are so sophisticated that you, the common person, can’t appreciate them. That’s not true. He’s playing chess and jumping his rook over your knight and saying, “King me.” Then several staffers have to tell him, “Mr. President, that’s not how the game works.”

I’m thankful for the adults around him who have to tell him no. I forgot that those people existed. They get drowned out amidst all the shouting.

But I’m only at the beginning of the book and we’re not even two years into his first term. Perhaps my privilege is making me overly optimistic but I’m looking out my window and the world isn’t burning to the ground.

I’ll keep you posted, though.