On "Not Seeing It Coming"

Conservatives traumatized in college. Then blindsided by fascism. It's the left's fault.

I was sitting in the sunny waiting room of a Brooklyn health clinic while reading “I Should Have Seen This Coming,” David Brooks’s latest essay in The Atlantic,

The mission of the clinic, which is in the neighborhood next to mine, is to provide “high quality, patient-centered primary health care in communities historically neglected due to racism and poverty, regardless of patients’ ability to pay.” There’s a strong focus on mental health here. The intake form asked how often I felt listless, how often I felt jittery, how well I slept, and whether I feared or suffered violence at home.

I’m not going to name the clinic for fear of its being defunded.

Mental health was also on David Brooks’s mind. Since Trump’s inauguration he’s “had trouble describing the anguish I’ve experienced. Grief? Shock? Like I’m living through some sort of hallucination? Maybe the best description for what I’m feeling is moral shame.”

The intake form has no box to tick for moral shame. But Brooks could have flagged his grief, trauma, and even hallucinations here, and found treatment at this clinic, where they see the tough cases, including family members of victims of police murder.