Mia Freedman: "Trump is the most awful reality show and I can't look away."

Sometimes I wonder what I did before I was obsessed with Trump and the shit show that is American politics. I must have had a lot of spare time. Because I reckon that for the past nine months or so, since Trump became the Republican nominee in the Presidential election and went up against Hilary Clinton, I have spent hours every week consumed by it.

On the day he won and for a little while after that, days maybe, I was too shocked and horrified to consume anything. I could barely speak about it. It felt personal and terrifying and just so… unfair. Everything I thought I knew about how the world works, everything I taught my children and was brought up to believe – stupid, awful people who are liars and scammers and blustery, arrogant blowhards don’t prosper, they get what they deserve – well, it turns out they can also end up as the leader of the free world.

Having been captivated by the drama and theatrics of the election campaign, I was holding out to see Donald Trump, the pussy-grabbing, misogynist bully, humiliated. Relegated back to his gold plated gaudy palace in Trump Tower with his trophy wife, complicit children and his ridiculous hair.

When that didn't happen, I was aghast. Like I'd been white knuckling a terrifying car trip just waiting for a responsible driver to take control of the wheel and instead, a maniac had parachuted into the driver's seat and was about to drive the world over a cliff.

Co-incidentally, I happened to be in the US for the first couple of weeks of Trump's presidency and I spent them glued to the TV in my hotel room, watching CNN and wanting to weep.

In airport lounge. Heading towards Trump's America.????????????????????????????????????????

A post shared by Mia Freedman (@miafreedman) on Jan 27, 2017 at 3:34pm PST

Through all of this, I had a partner in my obsession. Well, I had many. My mum was equally obsessed and so were many of my friends and co-workers.

But none so much as Amelia Lester, who I met about a year ago at a function for women in the media. She was an Aussie who had lived in the US since she was 18 - half her life - and had recently been brought back to edit the Good Weekend magazine in the Saturday Fairfax newspapers. She'd worked previously at the New Yorker and she'd gone to Harvard, in the same year as a rich, bland guy called Jared Kushner.

Now she was home and we had good chemistry, so I asked her on a friend date and we haven't stopped talking since that night. We soon fell into a pattern. Every couple of weeks we would meet at the same restaurant, The Paddington in Sydney and order the same food: roast chicken with chips and salad. A few glasses of prosecco or Rosé. Always early, 6 or 6:30pm. And we barely drew breath.

Our mutual love of US politics and pop culture got us through the election and its aftermath. Just. Amelia was my lifeline. When we weren't talking in person about Trump, the batshit crazy cast of characters he surrounded himself with at the Whitehouse and the various horrors he was visiting on the world (from the Muslim travel ban to executive orders de-funding abortion services for desperate women in third world countries to trying desperately to hide some patently dodgy and probably criminal associations with Russia to firing the FBI director to tweeting insanity in the middle of the night, abusing the media and calling any story that wasn't complimentary 'fake news') we were sending each other links to the best stories about it.

Our appetite was and is still insatiable. We were scared for the world and incredulous that this could have happened. "Is it going to be OK?" we would ask each other. "Are we going to be OK?"

Listen to the first episode of Tell Me It's Going To Be Okay here...

And then Amelia left me. I know. Selfish.

A month or so ago, she left Australia to move to Washington to be with her fiancé, a doctor in the US navy. They will be married next month and then he has been posted to Japan where they will make their life together.

But still Trump.

So a podcast was born.

Tell Me It's Going To Be OK is a fortnightly podcast where Amelia and I call each other on the phone - something we never actually did when we lived in the same city - and talk about Trump and all the pop culture we're consuming to distract ourselves.

We have also started a Facebook page of the same name which you can find here where we will be posting all the best stories about Trump and US politics - we're reading, watching and listening to everything so you don't have to.

The podcast and the Facebook page will be your filtered feed of all things Trump.

Because even though I live in Australia and he's not our President, I simply cannot look away.

Join us - and if you know someone who is obsessed with Trump and US politics, tell them about the page and the podcast so we can all be scared together.