Ask Rachel

Dear Rachel,

I keep hearing the term “gaslight.” Like, “Americans have to resist being gaslit,” and “Trump has become America’s gaslighter in chief.” I know what the word means – being manipulated into doubting one’s own sanity – which begs the question: is this word actually becoming very popular all of a sudden, or am I just going crazy?

–AllLitUp

I remember when a gaslighter was someone performing a popular fraternity trick. Oh, the times, they are a’changing. But you are not being gaslit: the term is ubiquitous now in a way it never was. Unless it really was always en vogue, only now I’m being told it was not popular until recently, so I believe the narrative over my own faulty memory... oh Frigidaire, maybe we’re all being gaslit all the time.

– This is how the world ends, Rachel

Dear Rachel,

News networks seem really hesitant to go into the details on what salacious deeds Trump supposedly did in Moscow. But I trust you, as a member of the media elite, to give it to me straight. What happened, and what exactly is a golden shower?

– Blacked Out

Dear Straight Shooter,

What happened is way less important than what should happen now. The former Republican presidential nominee ought to own it. “I’m about to become the most powerful man in the world. And yeah, I’m into some kinky stuff. Like, re- ally nasty. You don’t want to see the video. Trust me on this: it’s as gross as you think.” Because to be honest, I don’t care what his (consensual) sexual proclivities are. It could be healthy for America to acknowledge its repressed kink. So drop the sex scandals and demand to see the tax returns instead.

– BTW, it ain’t a shower made of solid gold, Rachel

Dear Rachel,

My neighbor refuses to believe that Donald Trump will be our president. I keep telling her it’s over, it’s done, we have to acknowledge it even if we don’t accept it. But she holds out some ludicrous hope. She calls it a “vibe.” I call it crazy talk. DJT is the 45th president, unless the earth swallows him up, and I’m sure the earth doesn’t even want him. How do I deal with her woo-woo beliefs after the January 20th apocalypse?

– It Is What It Is

Dear Spilled Milk,

You’re right; there’s no use crying. But people cope with tragedy at different paces. Your neighbor is not “woo-woo.” She is simply stuck in the mud of denial, which is the first step of coping with grief. After that comes anger. (This appears to be your stage.) In your own time, you too will come to bargaining, and then, finally, depression. That’s where you spend eternity in darkness. If only there were a fifth stage, called something like “kicking ass and taking names.” One where we could all quit despairing and do something to spread love and improve the world.

– Oh well, Rachel