angstbotfic:

lovelikesummer:

I mean, it doesn’t pain me at all. They need to do it.

so, after 9/11 U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins (in)famously said it was like the U.S. losing its virginity. (hella problematic on a zillion levels, but- ) 9/11 was this traumatic violation of a national sense of safety and identity and what was and wasn’t possible and that these things didn’t happen to us. 

in some ways, Trumpism is the same kind of American trauma. it strikes at the heart of the stories we told ourselves about being a beacon of freedom and justice. that’s why it pains Dr. Gu to admit that we are human rights violators at scale.

now, were those stories always lies? absolutely. but they were nice lies that made us feel good and were things that “we” aspired to be true. but now we’ve discovered just how shaky and incomplete that “we” always was. and for people who weren’t always failed by those lies, it’s painful.