Day 702, New world disorder

It's not unusual for me to ramble on about things, to mutter and grumble, to have a chunter.  A low-level mulling over of things that are causing agitation, questioning and wondering.  This may all be leading to some instability in my mental health.  As I get older I'm starting to think I'm getting more stupid, which may be true.  It may also be part of the continual recognition that things I used to think were simple are actually significantly harder and more complex than I could have imagined.  I'd never considered that my imagination was limited, and I don't believe that, so it must be either an increasing stupidity, or an increasing recognition of complexity.

One or the other.

It was while I was talking about the craziness of the world, chuntering, to someone the other day that I did a double take.  I said "we have a world where Trump and Putin are taken seriously, they are both crazy lunatics", which could be phrased better, but in an informal conversation it is fine.  The person responded along the lines of "yeah Trump, he is dangerous, but not Putin, he's ok."

I was genuinely surprised by this, so much so that I didn't say "What the fuck?"  It registered but I wasn't able to process it, like an exception had been caught and I was only able to consider it when doing a stack trace later on.

On the news some hours later I heard the new leader of The Ukips saying she was an admirer of Putin.

Then I started to notice more and more of this, various people all over the place apparently susceptible to simplistic concepts, soundbite politics from the 'strong', sexist, racist and homophobic leader of the Russian Federation.  Or as someone on Twitter said more eloquently:

Why is every nutter in the UK in love with Putin?

I suppose people like Putin make the world feel simple. Hard man, quick decisions. No need for messing about with debate at home or abroad.

Just do it. Politics reduced to a Nike slogan. Same emotional sentiment that lies behind Brexit and Trump and Corbyn.

Maybe the rest of us should yearn for simplicity and stop worrying about complexity, that's clearly the most sensible thing to do, as long as we don't think further ahead than next Tuesday about the consequences.  Perhaps adopting this approach really is the best thing for a person's mental health.*

Artists impression of Trump (bottom left), Putin (bottom right), and me being gobsmacked (top)

* Be aware that I am not saying that people are stupid.

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