No, I’m not okay at all. Sometimes I’m anxious, but most of the time I’m enraged. I’m enraged at the administration, the courts that enable them, the evil Republicans and the spineless Democrats. But mostly I’m enraged at the 60 some-odd percent of Americans who either voted for this catastrophe or couldn’t be bothered to vote at at. I can almost forgive people for voting for Trump 1.0. But, after fours years of that dumpster fire, it’s unforgivable that people voted to do it again.

My most incandescent rage is directed at progressive non-voters. There is nothing more careless and entitled than not voting because “both sides are bad”. It’s choosing to let millions of other Americans suffer because someone doesn’t meet your purity test. The Republican party has been captured by end times religious cranks and literal insane psychopaths; the worst corporate Democrat is orders of magnitude better for the health and well-being of the nation and the world.

At the same time, I have to go to work every day, interact with my colleagues, take care of my family and do all the everyday things that one has to do. I take strength in other people around the world living their lives in authoritarian hellholes. You survive and do what you can to effect change.

If I had to generalize, I’d say that most people in 2026 America believe that they are “right” about absolutely everything. I blame loneliness, social media, and our narcissistic culture.

I’m an extremely privileged hedonistic inner city party queer. This shit weighs so heavily on me I’m consumed with visions of war whenever I go out to have fun now.

Tripping mushrooms at the beach unable to escape horrible visions of the cruel calculus of war. The anger and shortages spilling into violence, famine, and fleeing your home, the way hunger and exhaustion will beat you down long before a gun is ever in your face. Occult dance party the night after the war started, could barely dance or enjoy myself just weighed down by the war, as was my wife, so we left very early.

Asking other people who were around me at the dance party, on the beach, other recent concerts, no one else was that bothered by the war, it wasn’t something anyone had put much thought into.

I live very close to where the Battle of Atlanta started in the Civil War. It’s been 150+ years since this land and its people actually knew war. Sure there are soldiers overseas but that’s exactly it, overseas, out of sight out of mind. By and large I don’t think most Americans comprehend in the slightest what war is. A lot of us grew up in the Global War on Terror where aside from the toxic political discourse a persistent state of war really didn’t feel all that much different than peace felt before.

A lot of Americans have also wised up to the idea that we fight forever wars, to a lot of people they can’t even keep up with when the fighting has started or stopped, just this vague awareness there are constant military actions happening in the backgound. So when they hear about all this with Iran it’s just another drop in the bucket of forever wars, something they have become desensitized to after decades of the Bush’s, Obama’s, and Clinton’s killing sprees around the world. So much murder not only can they not keep up they just tune out.

So in conclusion I think America has fully internalized the Orwellian mantra War Is Peace. They just can’t tell the difference anymore not that they would’ve cared much about Iran back when they could.

Americans acting normal as fuck. People were crashing out 10x harder when the invasion of Ukraine started in 2022

Depends on the person. I’m a therapist, tons of my clients are very upset, scared, crying, having trouble sleeping, depressed, feeling powerless and angry, etc.

This administration’s actions are taking a huge toll on some people’s mental health.

And people who are trans or gay? They are scared and many want to get out but can’t.

Having said all that… there are plenty of people who are not bothered because they are not informed and don’t realize how bad things really are.

I’m not normal, no. I can’t say I’m doing great. But I’m actually far more stable now than I’ve ever been. I’m preparing for bad times to help others as best I can. I’m not ready enough. I protest when I can. I try to read older books rather than the latest clickbait. My work actually matters, so I don’t feel drained from it. I mostly quit arguing with idiots, online and off. They’ll feel the pain soon enough. Good. I do mock them to their faces. If they change, I might help them. If it gets as bad as I’ve always suspected it will, I’ve already lived longer and better than anticipated. I’ve never feared oblivion. Sounds nice these days. If I die, I’ll die fighting the darkness. I’m content. Let them come. Good people will still live on. If we let the fools and psychos in power destroy our entire biosphere, well then we will have proved Humanity never deserved the stars in the first place.

If we make it, keep pushing humanity forward. We are all one people and we are worth the struggle. We are the only known intelligence in the Universe and we must learn to act like it, or die. Don’t let us down.

So that’s how I’m doing.

There have been many organized protests against Trump since he took office. I’m not sure how much press they’ve received outside the US. Though many still support him because they are indoctrinated into the MAGA cult, I would say that most (over half) of Americans are against the war for a variety of reasons.

The problem is that there is not much we can do in the short term to create change. Our system of government does not have an effective means to recall a leader.

The threat of legal action does little to deter this administration. For one thing, it’s slow. For another, they’ve shown that they can and will ignore court orders and this far don’t suffer any consequences. Finally, the administration has done as much as possible to install loyalists and remove honest people in every part of government, including the legal system.

Impeachment is a joke. Even if the process was started again, Republicans in the Senate would never convict one of their own.

So the average citizen doesn’t approve of what is happening but don’t see any effective means to change. It’s a very helpless feeling. Many disgruntled communities have been able to create some change in their local government but even changing political parties is not real change. We still have 2 right wing parties bought by special interests. I think many of us just try to do good where we can in our own sphere of influence.

I’m sure some people are. But constantly crashing out isn’t useful even in the worst situations. What is useful is taking real steps that have real effects. Action is the antidote for anxiety.

Trying to conduct my day as normal (food needs buying and bills need to be paid, after all), but with a marked increase of episodes of staring of into space internally shrieking as avenues of opportunity and life plans made years ago are irrevocably altered.

What’s the alternative? Give up? That doesn’t help anyone.

The average American barely has any idea there’s a war even happening or who the president is. Half the people I know think Biden is still president. Even people who do know there’s a war wouldn’t be able to find Iran on a map. Everything about our government and everything it does might as well be a TV show to my fellow Americans. They see it as fiction that doesn’t impact our lives and most people think it’s extremely boring so they tune it out.

People are crashing out but for different but associated reasons. Everyone’s broke, no one can afford healthcare, there’s a mass shooting every 3 days. Everyone’s tired and the alienation is so thick that people are all pointing in different directions to where they think the problem is. People are getting more conspiracy brained and twitchy.

If crying most days is crashing out, then yes.

The ‘background noise’ is getting louder but for the most part, people are just carrying about their day worried about their own personal lives

Personally? I am extremely worried, yet at the same time I’ve become so used to all the crazy shit that I’ve become almost too comfortably used to it. I live day to day and not try to think about how much more horrible the future is going to get.

I have a “conservative” friend. We both had a bit of a crashout discussion last night. We’re American.

The economy is crashing in front of our eyes. We’re both extremely privileged and lucky and we both recognize it and we recognize how fucking stupid everything is in our society. We recognize we’re powerless to even change the nature of our jobs.

In the Midwest, nothing has changed at all.

I just recently got a bunch of medical stuff and psychiatric stuff sorted out after decades of barely being able to function. So I’m finally feeling “normal” and the state of our politics has me stressed to the point of action, but not to the point of curling up in a ball and doing nothing, which is unusual for me. Very surreal to be functional in a nonfunctional world.