Great Escape

How to Break Up with Donald Trump

The psychology of why you can’t look away — and how to do it anyway

Catherine Price
GEN
Published in
9 min readAug 2, 2018

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Illustration: Richard Chance

Pop quiz: On average, who do you spend more time thinking about?

A. Your best friend
B. Donald Trump

A. Your mother
B. Donald Trump

A. The person you love the most in the world
B. Donald Trump

If you answered all Bs, you’re in good company: America is obsessed with Donald Trump. With our smartphones as our enablers, we’re reading about, listening to, and discussing Trump from the moment we wake up in the morning until we lay our heads down at night. It’s an unhealthy relationship, and for the sake of ourselves and our country, it’s time for us to take back our lives.

Considering how much time we spend paying attention to him, it can seem hard to believe that not so long ago, Donald Trump really didn’t matter. He was like unenriched uranium: yellow and slightly radioactive but unable to inflict harm on a mass scale.

Fast-forward to today. As president, Trump has been weaponized, able to unleash his destructive power — and control the news cycle — simply by tapping his thumbs.

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Catherine Price
GEN
Writer for

is a science writer, founder of Screen/Life Balance, author of How to Break Up With Your Phone & The Power of Fun. Learn more at CatherinePrice.com