The Fidget Spinner: Soothing or Stability, in the Days of Trump?
I noticed that the box containing Spinners advertising that it may be soothing. Wikipedia describes its use for “relieving nervous energy or psychological stress”. As a physicist though, I see its use as an interesting way to show the stability brought about by rotation, through the conservation of the angular momentum about the axis of rotation. When I thought of what contrast or agreement there could be between soothingness or stability, I immediately thought there must be a parody of the conflicts that many of us have been having with the sayings of our leader, Donald Trump.
Let’s start with the appearance of the spinner, and the curve of the sales of the spinner. Why is this the year of spinner, with its sales peaking in May? According to its own advertising, it arose at a time when it is needed to relieve psychological stress. The only major stress this country faces is the fundamental disruptive posture of the President. I will only mention a few key stress points: destroying healthcare for 22 or 36 million people; challenging the integrity of our mainstream media; canceling the clean power program; canceling out of the Paris climate agreement; denying the Russian interference in our election; and challenging the conventional rule of law in the Justice department. There are also the constant lying, distorting, scapegoating, and firing of reliable people, as well as the creating of fantasies. The latest being the question of whether our President really believes the praiseworthy phone calls that people never even made to him.
The lies, claims of fake news, and spoxes claiming all is well, as well as the collusion with Fox News and Breitbart must be very “soothing” to Trump loyalists. They are at the same time very “destabilizing” to the rest of us. While the spinners run around in circles, that may stabilize Trump lovers, but the rest of us need soothing. Hence the dual uses of the spinners.
With the heating of the oceans and atmosphere of the Northern summer, we expect more fierce weather events and illustrations of the stability of atmospheric rotations present in small scale tornadoes to giant scale hurricanes.
We note that 32% of high schools have banned spinners from class. The need to do this shows that the anxieties about the student’s futures are showing up in the class room. Is it because of the Trump attacks on colleges that he considers liberal, or on the lack of any progress on college affordability, or the President and spoxes denying science and constructing an “alternative universe”, or the Presidential practice of bullying, or the Secretary of Education’s attack on public education?
Will the future of Trump and family and friends lead to even more need for soothing toys, or will things return to a stable normal? Who are we kidding? Bring on the next round of soothers.
