Dealing with an Addiction

Reading About Trump

   Help! I’m addicted to reading about the news and satisfy it primarily by spending a whacky amount of time on the website of the New York Times. Given that Donald Trump is now the president of the United States, that coaxes me to read an untold number of articles about—who else?—Donald Trump. But I’m also tired of this avalanche of words about Trump and recognize that pursuing them is really a compulsion.
   I’m sure I’m not the only one both smitten and repulsed. For me, it is the latest manifestation of a very long habit. I traveled daily in the subway, starting in the fall of 1941, on what was then called the GG train, from Roosevelt Avenue, near our house in Jackson Heights, to Fort Greene Place in Brooklyn, a short walk from Brooklyn Tech, my high school. My “entertainment” on those journeys was the New York Times, folded into a long half-page wide strip. For me, US politics was then an important text and has been ever since.

   There may well have been other players about whom as much was written as is now about Trump, but I can’t now recall them. Moreover, only a fraction of those Trump pieces are truly substantive, in that they are more than accounts of trivial actions, perhaps revealing something about the man’s character, but not much if anything of note about Trump’s impact on the world.

   So we addicts are confronted with a dilemma. Either we pursue all of Trumpiana or we risk missing some aspect that matters about what is going on in the political world. On the assumption that there are others like me—that is, reluctant addicts—I have  a proposal for the New York Times, one that might actually gain them readers.

   Let them assign one of their writers, probably changing them after a term of service, to do a column, daily or every few days, in which they briefly summarize Trump doings that do make a difference in the real world, giving references to articles in which that item is discussed—but leaving out Trump stuff that doesn’t really make any difference. Of course there will be differences of opinion about this, but I’m happy to got with an experienced Times reporter, recognizing that, like all mankind, she or he is fallible. For the next four years—one hopes not beyond then—that would perform a valuable service for Times readers. An unusual proposal? Yes, but then Trump is an unusual president. No?