There's a reason why we feel disgust toward certain people

Resumen detallado

It goes beyond appearances.

Teeming millions of us will always remember where we were when the glad tidings of the Trump-smiting US mid-term election results began to percolate into our devices and from there into our ecstatic hearts and minds.

And so I will always remember that I was enjoying an already idyllic few days at the NSW South Coast at the hamlet of Mermaids' Milieu (not its true name, to preserve its privacy) with loved ones.

The extreme joy the incoming results stoked in my bosom (my device was tuned to the brilliant minute-by-minute coverage by the rejoicingly Trump-despising New Yorker) surprised, just a little.

Yes, one had expected to feel quite pumped-up if the results heralded the beginning of the end of Trumpism; but the actual orgasmic ecstasy (building up and being sustained over several hours as the coverage unfolded) was a revelation.

Perhaps we may have underestimated how very, very welcome the glad tidings (the New Yorker called the results "America's revenge") were after these 12 malignant years of the Trump era. We may have underestimated just how psychologically-emotionally bullying and morale-sapping the Trump phenomenon has been for us.

For those of us who have been suffering from what I will call the Trump Obsession and Angst and Disgust Disorder (TOADD) the gladsome mid-term results, with their promise of a foreseeable end to our Trump torments, perhaps have had a kind of mental-health restoring magic.

It is the motto of this column (borrowed, reverently, from Socrates) that the unexamined life is not worthy living. And so in recent times I have been trying to fathom what it has been that has made so many of us such prisoners of TOADD.

There has been, and will be for the remainder of his presidency something most unusual about the kinds of loathing Trump triggers in decent folks' bosoms.

Perhaps the mixture of Trump-stoked feelings (including fear, loathing, shock, horror, despair, anger and melancholy) has resulted in a blended emotion for which there is no labelling…

Inicio del artículo, extracto de The Canberra Times. Para leer el resto, abra el artículo en el sitio del medio.