There’s nothing left to be shocked by

Like many of us, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to process the horrible events transpiring in the great American city of Minneapolis.

I told someone the other day I was shocked by all of it, and then I took a step back and thought about that for a minute. I’m not shocked or surprised or dumbfounded that any of this is happening. I figured it would. It’s just a natural progression of the continuing atrocities committed by this presidential administration.

I get a lot of flak for what I write in my opinion columns. I’ve never given that much thought or care. I’m an incredibly thoughtful person and realize that my legacy will be easy to piece together. Much of my life’s work can be found in ink and newsprint.

For years and years, I’ve written about my disdain for Donald Trump and his band of misfits. It’s never been easy to do so, but I’ve always felt a responsibility to push back on this man and the folks who enable him. I still feel that way.

So, no, I’m not shocked that ICE agents — undertrained men who’ve been told they have “absolute immunity” in their actions and that it’s OK to do their terrible work while hiding their faces — are gunning down American citizens on our streets. That feeling left me long ago.

I’m not sad, either. That’s not quite the right word. Don’t get me wrong. I hate what’s happening, and I do feel terrible for the families of the victims. My sadness has been replaced by something worse, I think, and that emotion is called, maybe wrongly, “numbness.” I feel numb, or, as defined by a Google search, as having a “reduced ability to experience emotions.”

I still care, but I’m also tired of shouting into a void. I spend a lot of time with fellow journalists, and many of them feel much the same. We’ve reported on Trump’s actions for years. By simply writing about his actions, we’ve proven — over and over — that he’s a bad person surrounded by equally bad, or maybe even worse, goons.

Despite this work and being labeled “fake news” and being treated like the worst villains in the American story, we’re still trying to show folks what’s really happening. And when that doesn’t work, we show folks the raw video — like the footage of Alex Pretti, a U.S. citizen who worked as an intensive care nurse for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, being needlessly and senselessly gunned down by federal agents.

And it still doesn’t work. So many people are still under Trump’s spell. So many people have allowed their worst impulses, their most horrible traits, to rise to the surface. So many people have indeed been tricked by “fake news,” but it’s not the information coming to them from the media by and large. It’s from the leaders they trust — even though those leaders have done little, if anything, to earn that kind of loyalty.

It’s maddening, it’s sickening and, unfortunately, it’s downright dangerous. We can’t have conversations about improving our country when so many people are living in delusion. We can’t unify as a people until everyone accepts the truth and stops believing in the slop pushed to the masses by the administration — you know, the stuff that one of Trump’s early lieutenants called “alternative facts.”

I’ve warned Republican leaders that history will not be kind to them for their obedience and subservience to Trump. I’ve warned everyday Trump supporters that the “Well, I voted for him for cheap gas and eggs and because Joe Biden was senile” excuse will not tread water when historians catalog this section of our history. I’ve even written that the folks who say they don’t care anything about politics, that they despise all political leaders and parties and thus don’t participate in the process, will not be able to feign ignorance about all of this when the history textbooks are being written.

But, after so many years of shouting, I’m tired. I feel like so many of us — not just the journalists, but the average Americans, the people who just want a safe place to live and a chance to succeed — are exhausted.

Maybe “numb” wasn’t the right word to describe my current feelings after all. WebMD tells me that mental exhaustion is a thing. I’m there. I believe it.

If you’re like me, I hope you can find relief in the good things. I hope the load gets lighter. And I continue to pray for our country. I continue to hope that the idea of America — a place where all people, regardless of origin or thought process or any other differentiator, have a chance to peacefully thrive — will one day be realized.

Joshua Wilson is executive editor of The Macon Melody. Reach him at joshua@gtln.org.