New York: We’re all familiar with the state of affairs. The US has never been more divided; the political and media system is broken, and people are exhausted from 10 years of chaos.
So how do some people deal with the strain? New Yorkers walking through Washington Square Park recently might have availed themselves of a new kind of therapy.
“People want to vent”: Cameron Samson sits in a New York park to listen to anyone who wants to talk.Credit: Michael Koziol
Cameron Samson, 33, has set himself up on a park bench, offering to listen to people’s political anxieties and grievances. He doesn’t debate the point, provide policy statements or give advice. Samson is simply there to absorb and chat.
“People are frustrated, angry, scared,” he says. “[When] you turn on the television or social media, you notice the intensity, for sure. When you do get a chance to speak with people, sometimes it is a different tone than the headlines and the clickbait. But certainly, everyone’s grappling with politics in their own way.”
Every presidential election is billed as the most consequential one of its era, but this time it could be true. Running his third campaign, Donald Trump is promising to rule with an iron fist in pursuit of vengeance against the left, the media, the institutions and anyone he considers his enemy. His platform has been widely described as fascist, but he’s dead even in the polls with Kamala Harris.
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Then again, not everyone is thrilled with Harris, who replaced a faltering Joe Biden late in the race and – despite a brief honeymoon phase – struggled to differentiate herself.
Samson has popped down to the park for two or three hours at a time over the past two weeks and says a few dozen people have approached him to talk so far.
“People want to vent, people have a lot on their minds. I have heard a lot of confusion,” he says. “People tell me, ‘I don’t understand what these other people are thinking, I don’t understand why people are saying these things’.”