On the afternoon of Election Day, I submitted myself to a colonoscopy and endoscopy, which I’d scheduled back when Joe Biden was still a presumptive presidential nominee. After the doctor finished taking a tour of my insides and the anesthesia wore off, I woke up in the recovery room. My day went downhill from there.
Granted, I got to eat again, which was nice. Also, my insides passed inspection. As the election returns started coming in, though, I was wistful for those 45 minutes or so when I’d been blissfully unconscious in a surgical gown, my phone stored in a bag that was well out of my reach.
If my anesthesiologist had been nearby that evening, I’d have asked him to top me up and put me back under. Maybe for four more years. That desire for disengagement has been a siren song for Kamala Harris supporters (and/or Donald Trump detractors) in the two weeks since the election was called, which have touched off what Politico labeled “the great blue tune-out of 2024.
” MSNBC’s and CNN’s ratings are in freefall . Former Twitter power users who in less despairing days half ruefully, half proudly declared they’d “never leave this app” have embarked on a mass X-odus in search of greener grass, bluer skies , and greater distance from Trump enabler Elon Musk. I’ve lost track of how many people have written, posted, or personally told me that they’ve been in a self-imposed partial news blackout.
As the writer Will Leitch put it the weekend after the election, �.