ACROSS THE POND: Trump-related uneasiness returns as United States election year hype gathers pace

How is it possible we are already half-way through January? It doesn’t seem two minutes since I was making New Year’s resolutions (now broken), and hoping that 2024 would be a good one. Already I’m dreading the rest of the year.

It’s election year across the pond, and election year is always pretty full-on. The next nine months will be a constant bombardment of political campaigns on all the news channels, adverts, our post, signs in people’s gardens and bumper stickers with the messages: ‘Biden for President’, ‘Trump 2024 Take America Back’, ‘MAGA’, and ‘Let’s Go Brandon’. I only just found out what that last one means – look it up if you’re curious!

At the end of the Trump presidency, there was a deep weariness in the air. People around me were tired and frazzled. Constant daily drama had been a thing for years, flooding our screens, cancelling out the previous daily drama, which cancelled out the daily drama the day before that. When Joe Biden won the next election, there was a sigh of relief among many. He wasn’t the most charismatic of men, but he was calm and exuded stability. That meant no more histrionics, and no more worrying about nuclear codes going astray. No more wondering what would happen next. Finally, there was a grown-up in the room and we could all sleep easy at night.

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But now the uneasiness is back. People are admitting their anxiety about the election. Could Trump really win? And if he does, what will happen? The first time round everything was new. This time he knows the ropes. Will he go into full dictator mode? It looks likely. And that’s scary. What will happen with Ukraine when he stops US support?

What about his buddies in Russia and North Korea? And closer to home, what about immigrants, illegal or not?

We were living in Edinburgh when Trump won the election in 2016. Me, not wanting to miss a minute, stayed up the whole night armed with popcorn and Horlicks. As the night wore on, results from different states slowly trickled in. A sense of foreboding soon lodged in my stomach the closer it got to morning. Computer Mannie skipped it and went to his bed, and I had to break it to him on his birthday that the unthinkable had happened.

Scottish and UK politics aren’t perfect, but going from that to the political system in the USA has been a shock, and it still baffles me to this day. It’s divisive, and toxic, and both sides think theirs is the only way. People are very vocal about it, and to a certain extent, your political leaning defines how you are seen, and who you are.

For this election year, I’m going to make one more resolution: to drastically reduce my social media and news consumption (except for the Ross-shire Journal, of course). I’ll get the daily basics, but that’s that. As a columnist, it feels hypocritical for me to do this, but after repeatedly getting sucked down rabbit holes and getting overwhelmed, it’s necessary.

I might keep an eye on Trump’s legal troubles here and there. But it’s hard for me to believe that he’ll go to prison after getting off scot-free for most of his life. This November, I won’t be staying up to watch the results with my Horlicks and popcorn. But no doubt I’ll be in my bed fretting, and wondering if I’ll be able to sleep easy for the next four years.

Kerry MacIver originally hails from the Black Isle and now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. She writes about being a Scot in the USA.

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