Cozy Times

When my husband and I prepared for our temporary extended stay in the United States to see our grandkids, we also anticipated making protest posters, days on a picket line and marches on Washington. Instead of a population energized in opposition to Donald J Trump’s policies, we found friends and strangers alike espousing the virtues of curling up with a cup of tea and a cozy mystery novel while listening to Noah Kahan. We have been soaking in movies like Project Hail Mary, a competence-porn bromance, and love fests like Abbott Elementary and Shrinking, like they’re rose-scented baths. In the cozy world, logic and kindness win over ego and nastiness.

I asked my book club - which was discussing When the Coffee Gets Cold, a feelgood novel that reads like Chicken Soup for the Soul (just as simplistic; equally sappy) - whether I was spotting a trend. They confirmed: Americans’ nerves are shot. We’ve bumped downhill careening from COVID, to climate anxiety; from toxic social media to apocalyptic AI job loss scenarios via ICE raids and oil blockades. The pressure is relentless. When we got to the US, we realized that Americans have been hustling at a pace that is not sustainable. Trading in clubbing for knitting is self-care.

Starting in 2016, the Trump era introduced public life that is built on dominance, contempt, humiliation and zero-sum competition. This is not a partisan observation; it is an aesthetic one. Public discourse has become cruel, nasty and rude. Donald Trump and Pam Bondi are not the people we want our kindergartners to emulate.

When Trump took office the first time, we did demonstrate against him. I even brought my pussy hat with me this year. Yet the million-strong Women’s March and the Black Lives Matter protests produced only backlash. Ten years on, we have lost our reproductive rights, we’ve been fired from government jobs and diversity messaging has been deleted from public view. The queer community had to sue the government to raise a pride flag at Stonewall Inn. We beg our congressional representatives to do something but our pleas have been ignored in favor of political gain. The fabric of ordinary social life has worn down like the knees of my jeans.

And that president we chose because he’s a businessman has turned the US economy into his own conglomerate. According to The New Yorker, Trump and his family have made $4 billion and counting off of the presidency. Meanwhile, our housing costs have outpaced wages for a generation. Even so, The Gilded Age and The Buccaneers streaming on HBO convey that the wealthy are compassionate people. While the economic comparison with that time period is historically legitimate, we don’t see any of today’s billionaires building opera houses or libraries. They are building escape pods to leave us behind. Inequality is not quite at Les Mis pre-revolutionary French level - yet - but it’s close.

Social media delivers the billionaire’s third yacht while we worry whether our daughters will have deep fake porn spread across their school’s group chat. Even if that doesn’t happen, we’re still dealing with angst and depression and short attention spans while Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk sail off to their next events. For our own mental health, we are working on ridding ourselves of our social media habits and picking up Jenny Odell’s book How to Do Nothing.

Now, an oil shock described by the International Energy Agency as the worst energy disruption in recorded history - worse than the 1970s crisis, worse than the Ukraine war. And it is feeding directly into soaring food bills. While some government insider makes millions on predicting the next bombing, we have to choose between paying for gas for the car and the utility bill.

Add the remnants of COVID and our collective psychological hangover: disrupted attachment, frayed social bonds, a generation of young people whose formative years were spent in isolation.

A generation has been told not to talk about politics when it’s politics that are the problem. It’s no wonder a cozy fantasy, a quiet evening playing board games or a conversation that meanders feels rewarding.

Psychologist Martin Seligman coined the term ‘learned helplessness’ to describe people who experienced repeated uncontrollable shocks and eventually stop trying to escape even when escape became possible. The Women’s March of 2017, one of the largest single-day protests in American history, was answered by the Dobbs ruling overturning Roe v. Wade. Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 were followed by a hollowing out of diversity initiatives. Renee Good and Alex Pretti have been killed for their efforts to stop illegal ICE seizures in Minneapolis. People have been arrested for their social media posts. Neighbors and co-workers have been disappeared. Yet all January 6th participants have been pardoned.

The message delivered repeatedly is that our wants and desires do not move the system. All our push back has brought us is dinner table arguments with cranky uncle Frank. So we have flocked to feel-good shows highlighting chosen family - Abbott Elementary, Ted Lasso and Shrinking - because our own have become toxic. We’ve built entire communities around #CozyMystery (#CozyFantasy, #CozyHorror even). Book lovers have become Booklovers. We see ourselves in The Maid. We decorate in Cottagecore because nothing in the real world is pastoral or simple.

Enter the cozy No Kings marches with their mock and awe campaign. Protesters with inflatable flamingo costumes. A three-foot-tall sculpture of an Idaho potato sporting a crown with the words “No dick-taters.” Hair dryers set to melt ICE. The aesthetic has been deliberately cozy: playful, nonviolent, communal. Trump’s response was to post an AI video of King Trump dropping excrement on demonstrators. Real mature, Don.

This Easter, while our president picked a nasty fight with a pope and hurled expletives at Iran, we turned our eyes skyward. Artemis II, staffed by the first woman, the first Black American and the first Canadian to go to the moon spoke only of joy, teamwork and love. No one uttered the DEI-words, lest NASA lose its funding. But we all embraced the progress, thirsty for kind words and unabashed displays of cooperation.

No wonder the Solarpunk game Loftia is the breakout hit this year. Following on the heels of Stardew Valley, its focus is on sustainable community. Solar energy and cooperative living are the visual language of the cozy revolution: optimistic, green, and communal. Congress: Can you not listen for once?

During this stay in New York, my husband and I aren’t finding flare guns or tear gas. I’m reading Checkout 19 and learning pickleball at my local Y, where I’ve been met with warm smiles and encouragement. Our landlord tells of a Mah Jong renewal and I admire a friend’s crocheting project.

Meanwhile, Americans are encouraged that Hungary’s youth came out to vote with such force that they ousted their own Dick-Tator. The opposition used music, art and community festivals to fight Viktor Orban’s fear-mongering. We wait for our turn, if MAGA allows the next midterm elections to happen fairly.

New York Times columnist Thomas Edsall, 84, laments that young people don’t take to the streets, choosing, he believes, to leave their thinking to AI and their entertainment to slop. But it makes sense to me that this generation’s revolution will not be televised. It is healthy to tune out and go inward. Generation Z and the cohort coming up behind them were raised by parents who taught them to steer clear of politics. Boomers had their chance and look at what they did. Are you listening, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters? Move over, Joan Baez, audiences nowadays prefer their lyrics by Laufey. Let’s allow them to do it their way. Their revolution will be cozy.

Frankly, it’s kinda more enjoyable that way.

Photo by Olena Bohovyk on Unsplash