Lisa Belkin Can’t Let Her Trump Go

It’s worth Googling the names of reporters who write long form pieces on Donald Trump. There’s a massive scramble for thinly veiled hit pieces that manage to capture none of Trump’s obvious and significant flaws while digging deep into things that make the reporters personally uncomfortable. So, the opposite of journalism. More like a letter from an angry ex.

Lisa Belkin wrote an unnecessarily detailed piece for Yahoo News, the bottom of the new outlet barrel, on how the Trump Presidency is causing otherwise mentally sound people to have insomnia, panic attacks, and horrific REM sleep nightmares. Belkin sought out anecdotal evidence from a series of people semi-employed in the public arts and social services fields to share their post-election tales of anxiety:

“I fall asleep and wake up and get a snack and toss and turn and try to make sense of what’s going on. It’s unfathomable and that inability to reason with it is frustrating, and the whole situation is also enraging. Who could sleep?”

Poets, dog rescuers, and fashion designers alike are suffering through endless waves of disabling stress. Also, midnight snacking. Trump made me eat that whole bag of cheese pretzels. Scoundrel.

Lea Grover, a Chicago writer, has spent more than one night calculating where in her home she could build fake walls behind which to hide immigrants facing deportation.

Here’s a hint, Lea. You don’t know how to build shit. Also, the number of Mexicans you’ve let visit your home in your entire life is zero. If you could migrate your dreams to how your boyfriend is fucking less annoying women behind your back, you’d be onto something.

You know why Yahoo is publishing this cloying anecdotal drivel, you have to wonder why people are taking a week to write it for fifty bucks and a byline.

You may recall Lisa Belkin is the former New York Times journalist who came out last year with a HuffPo piece, “Trump made a pass at me, and why it matters”. Belkin recalled a time in the 80’s when she covered Trump’s Central Park ice rink re-opening. He invited her solo to an afterparty while her then boyfriend was off getting hot cocoa. Obviously, Belkin rejected his advances. Even more obviously, she still thinks about it all the time. This was during the wave of every woman who had ever met Trump accounting his rapey behavior. Minus the actual rape part. A generally vague Snidely Whiplash portrait.  

To be fair, articles on foreign policy, military campaigns in Syria, NATO financials, entitlement reform, CBO scoring, and debt service won’t get you front page Yahoo and associated partner outlets. Stories about chicks rummaging the ice box at 2am looking to make the Trump pain stop meets your inane, insipid, and unsupported trifecta of modern political journalism standards. A means by which to get partisan hacks roiled up over absolute meaningless trivia. Lifetime movies offer more to think about. Belkin, there’s a word for people who keep dropping the bucket when the well has long since run dry. Yahoo Senior Reporter. Like a job title noose.