I’d really love to see some of the grownups in our government (assuming that there are a few), come right out and address this giant pile of steaming bull shit that we are currently calling our “partial government shut down.”
I would love, more than I can say, for the Democrats to come right out in public and say this:
“We recognize the fact that the President of the United States is having a giant temper tantrum over his ridiculous wall. We know, because we actually look at facts, that the crimes committed by undocumented immigrants are far fewer than those committed by American citizens. Nevertheless, we are willing to overlook the President’s hysteria and panic.
We also know that there is no emergency at the border. We have spoken to the mayor of El Paso, whose city has found itself responsible for thousands of unexpected immigrant families. We get it. Our immigration system needs a major overhaul. We need some laws, some fences, some plans in place for how to help asylum seekers.
But we know that there is no “crisis” calling for emergency powers or sending troops or any of the other hoopla that the Pres is demanding.
Most of all, we Democrats understand that we are wasting way too much time and energy on President Trump’s ridiculous fantasy of a “big beautiful wall that Mexico will pay for.” We recognize the fact that this is all just a big made up pile of nothingburger designed to make Trump feel powerful.
So. Because we have a whole lot of actual governing to do, and we have a boatoad of investigations to start, we are going to give the big baby his 5 billion dollars. We want the American voter to understand that we are giving in to a tyrant and agreeing to waste a bunch of your money. We apologize.
But we’re doing it because time is a-wasting. We need to start governing. We need to deal with a few actual crises. Things like guns and endless wars and climate change. You know, serious issues that are beyond the comprehension of the Clown in Chief.
We are doing this because we understand that you guys elected us so that we’d actually run the country. You don’t care who ‘wins’ in a stupid bullshit made up fight over a big fat nothing.
Wouldn’t you love that?
Let the Democrats finally act like grownups. Let them very publicly roll their eyes, make the “crazy” finger twirl next to their ears, and pat Trumpy on his big fat orange butt. Let them end this entire stupid embarrassing spectacle and let him go play with his little orange bricks and build his pointless wall.
Somebody out there needs to finally start running things around here.
Baby Donnie. Yes, this is the man in charge. He hasn’t progressed emotionally since this photo was taken.
It is so difficult to watch as a loved one shows changes in thinking and language. When we watch someone struggle to find the correct word, or when we ourselves can’t follow their train of thought, our hearts sink.
I spent a couple of decades working as a speech/language pathologist, so I have a pretty good body of knowledge when it comes to how language is organized in our brains. I’ve seen all kinds of language disorders and deficits, and I recognize them when I run into people who are exhibiting the symptoms.
I’m pretty familiar with the language of dementia, too, having watched a few loved ones progress into old age. I recognize the signs when someone begins to jump from one topic to the next as if every conversation is simply a stream of consciousness. Each comment triggers the next, with a diminishing connection to the original idea.
Here is an example of what I firmly believe is a language/cognitive disorder. Try to follow the thread and see if you notice what I mean.
Q: “Is there a number below five billion that you might be willing to accept in order to reopen the government? A: Right.Well I’d rather not say it, ah, could we do it for a little bit less, it’s so insignificant compared to what we’re talking about. You know I’ve heard numbers as high as 275 billion dollars we lose in illegal immigration and here we have a wall that you’re talking about, to complete, because, again a lot has already been done because we’ve been getting money in…somebody said that we didn’t spend the money, well, we have spent it but we don’t paycontractors before they finish the job, that’s one of the other things that Pat and I sort of instituted. We like to have people do the work, so if we’re building a wall, we’re paying as they build it, we pay it when it’s finished. So they do a good job.This way if they don’t do a good job, we don’t pay them. So not all of the money has beenpaid, but the money has been used. So maybe you guys could remember that we you say that I haven’t spent the money, we’ve spent the money. We wanna finish it up. The five billion, five point six billion approved by the House is such a small amount compared to the level of the problem. When you see that the democrats want to give away twelve billion extra, and we’re giving away 54 billion in foreign aid. So we give money to countries but we don’t give money to our own country, which is another thing that I’ve been complaining about, and we’re cutting that back. It’s very unfair. When we give money to Guatemala and to Honduras, and to El Salvador, and they do nothing for us. When we give money to Pakistan, one point three billion dollars, I ended that, a lot of people don’t know it, because they haven’t been fair to us. We wanna have a great relationship with Pakistan. But they house the enemy, they take care of the enemy, we just can’t do that. So I look forward to meeting with the folks from, and the new leadership in Pakistan, we’ll be doing that in the not too distant future, but I ended the one point three billion that we paid, like it was water, we just pay it. To Pakistan. And I ended that. And we ended a lot of other money that’s being sent out on a monthly basis, and a yearly basis, to countries that don’t even vote for us in the United Nations. We give them billions of dollars, they don’t even vote for us in the United Nations. When we want something, to help certain countries…..and you know it’s not all about the rich countries, cuz the rich countries really do take advantage of us cuz they pay a very small percentage of their military….and they cheat on trade. They take advantage of us on trade. Other than that, they’re wonderful, OK? But there are countries that are poor, that we will com…we don’t want anything from them! We want to help them. There are some horrible things going on in the world. And we wanna help those people, we don’t want money from them. We don’t want that. We’re not looking for that.But when you have massively wealthy countries, that have very low military costs because the United States subsidizes them, so they take advantage of us on military…they could easily pay us, the full amounts. And they also take advantage of us on trade. So when I speak up, I mean, that’s why I got elected, issues like that. Issues like the border and it would be so easy not to do anything. When they say I’m not popular in Europe, I shouldn’t be popular in Europe! If I was popular in Europe, I wouldn’t be doing my job. Because I want Europe to pay. Germany pays one percent. They should be paying four percent.They pay one percent. They should be paying even more than that. Other countries pay a small percentage of what they should be paying. So when I say, ‘I’m sorry, folks, you have to pay up’, I shouldn’t be popular in Europe. They do a poll, I was at 88 percent and now I’m at, you know, a very low number. And Europe, I don’t care about Europe. I’m not elected by Europeans, I’m elected by Americans. And by American taxpayers, frankly. So, I think my relationship, I will tell you, with the leaders is very good. A lot of them don’t even understand how they got away with it for so many years. I’ll say to….Angela, and I’ll say to many of the other leaders, I’m friends with all of them, I’ll say, ‘How did this ever happen?’ And they sorta go, like ‘I can’t believe it either.’ They can’t believe it! You know why, cuz their Presidents and other people within their administrations, in the past, they allowed them to get away. Like some of them would say, ‘Well no one ever asked us to pay.’ We have negotiations going on with numerous countries right now to pay a lot of money to the United States for what we’re doing for them. I wouldn’t say they’re thrilled. Because they’ve had many many years where they didn’t have to pay. So now they’re gonna have to pay. And if that makes me unpopular in those countries, that’s OK. But we’re doing tremendous service to those countries, and they should at least respect us. They didn’t respect us, and that was the problem.”
I assume that you noticed a few disturbing things about this “response” to a simple question. Hopefully, you saw that the question was never answered or even addressed. The speaker went on for four minutes and forty five seconds without pause, but never even tried to answer the question.
You may also have seen that each idea lead fluidly to the next, with the speaker never realizing that he had strayed completely off the path of the original question. That lack of self awareness is another hallmark of disordered thinking.
The speaker (pretend it’s your Uncle Pete) also assumed that his listeners were following his internal thoughts. The speaker refers to the Democrats hoping to “give away twelve billion extra,” but never explains what he means. Extra in what way? Beyond what amount? Given to whom?
When he says that “Germany pays one percent,” he doesn’t explain. He seems to believe that we already know, because he does. One percent of what? Why?
I also think that in spite of his ability to recall exact dollar amounts, this man shows signs of a word finding problem. Note the pause before he pulls out the name “Angela” when thinking about European leaders. Note the use of phrases like “certain countries” and “many leaders.” Few specific labels are found anywhere in this response.
Please watch the video that I’ve put at the end of this post. I ask you to turn off your partisan reactions, and pretend that this language and this thinking is coming from your elderly relative.
Then reach out to our members of Congress, no matter which party they represent. Reach out to the media. Ask why in the world nobody is willing to stand up and say that Uncle Pete needs a neuropsych evaluation as soon as possible.
The entire world is put in danger by a US President with this kind of disordered thinking, no matter what its’ cause.
Listen with your eyes closed and try to follow the tangents.
I used to be a teacher. For many years, I was one of those people charged with keeping our children educated, safe, confident and skilled. One of the many charges that I took so seriously during those years was the charge to prevent children from bullying each other.
I was a fifth grade teacher. My students were ten and eleven years old. I was told that if they bullied each other, part of the fault was mine.
I understood. My classroom spent time every single day talking about how to interact with civility, with kindness, with generosity. I remember talking to them about the fact that they did NOT have to be friends. They did NOT have to like each other.
“But, here’s the thing,” I would tell them, “You are all members of this very same classroom community. You must treat each other with respect and care. If you don’t, our entire community will suffer. We will not achieve our goal of learning what we are supposed to learn if you are mean to each other and if you fail to support each other.”
And I taught them that if anyone of them became a bully, they all had a moral obligation to stand up to that bully and to protect the victim. I taught them not to be bystanders. I taught them not to let the bully get away with intimidating the weaker members of our community.
Those children understood what I taught. More importantly, they carried out those lessons every single day. To quote one of my students, some five years after he had left my classroom: “We learned that we were all really friends. In Karen’s classroom, everyone stood up for each other.”
So here I am. Four years after my retirement. Wondering how it is that we expect ten year olds to understand and carry out lessons that our actual highly paid, internationally renowned leaders fail to grasp.
How is it that we ask our fifth graders to stop being bullies, to stop intimidating each other, to stop calling each other names, but we let the most powerful people in the country do exactly that? How is it that we expect our youngest children to act in ways that we don’t demand of our so called “leaders”?
When Donald Trump calls his adversaries names, when he labels them as “enemies”, when he asks his followers to attack them, he is behaving in all of the ways that we won’t allow our children to do. He is the absolute epitome of the ignorant, hateful bully on the playground.
The bully that every public school teacher is expected to stop in his tracks.
So.
Where is Congress in this current bullying situation? Where are the leaders of the GOP? Where are the people who we expect to protect us from the ignorant, hateful bully on the national stage?
Why are they acting as bystanders, those silent observers who encourage the bully by not stepping in?
If we can demand that our public school teachers stop bullies, we can damn well demand that our members of Congress do the same. We can demand that our nation’s governors stand up the bully. We can demand that our media outlets stand up to that bully, and that they label his lies as lies.
If you all can ask the average classroom teacher to do it, then you better be absolutely sure that on Nov 6 you will be voting for people who will do the very same thing in Washington.
Bullying is wrong. It’s wrong on the elementary school playground and it’s wrong when it happens on the national stage in front of hundreds of people at a political rally.
Our leaders should be held, at the very least, to the same standards as our public school employees.
I am finding myself increasingly confused about who I’m supposed to hate these days.
I mean, I know that its wrong to hate people because of their race, their gender, their gender identity, their sexual preferences, their native language, their religion, their favorite baseball team (even Yankee fans)….
I’m a liberal middle aged white woman. I have marched against nuclear power, the Vietnam war, the slow passage of the ERA, the idea of a gas pipeline going through my town, income inequality, this President, and a few other things I forget at this point.
But.
Here’s where I’m confused.
If I believe what I see on social media, I am supposed to hate- with a deep and abiding passion- everyone who voted for Donald Trump. More, I’m supposed to detest and vilify everyone who still thinks he is doing a good job.
Even in said person is my very own family member, someone I love and treasure.
That’s really hard. I tend to be a relatively kind person, even if I am passionate about my political beliefs.
When I watch the news, or read online news stories, I realize that there are millions of my fellow countrymen who are being convinced that they are supposed to hate ME. If they want to seem like good Americans, real patriots, they are supposed to be calling me names like “libtard” and “snowflake”. They are supposed to scream at me because I want “open borders”. They are supposed to yell that I support the “deep state” and that I love crime, drugs, pillaging and rape. (OK, maybe that last part is over the top, but it’s hard to tell.)
Here’s the thing.
Years before the Donald was ever heard of, Americans were arguing about politics. I remember the 60’s very well, when every family gathering was marked by shouting over the war. I remember long, tortuous arguments with friends and relatives about Iran (way back, during the time of the hostage taking), about Israel/Palestine, about environmental concerns. I’ve been sneeringly labelled a “tree hugger,” a “lefty,” a “commie”.
None of that came with the level of absolute hatred that is soaking our interactions today.
Years after the Donald will be nothing more than an embarrassing chapter in US history, the citizens in this country will argue over everything from tax rates to school curriculum.
It’s what we do. We’re informed Americans. We vote. We try to be informed.
But today is not “years ago” or “years from now”. Today is today.
And we are in a very very scary place. We think its fine, even admirable, to type obscenities on Twitter at people who disagree with us. We cheer when a member of our “team” is able to embarrass and humiliate people from the “other team.”
I blame the anonymity of social media for this.
We have fallen for the lie that we are good patriots if we publicly attack each other for our beliefs.
I blame Donald Trump for most of this. But I blame the gullible media for it, too. They loved the ratings and the fake outrage and the easy reporting that comes with their coverage of people screaming at each other.
Mostly, though, I blame us.
I mean, seriously folks. What the absolute hell?
If you voted for Trumpy, I think you made a huge mistake. I don’t think you are the spawn of the devil. I do not think you are part of a giant racist neo-Nazi attack on liberty and democracy.
If you voted against Trumpy, I don’t think you wear a halo. I don’t think you have a special entry into Heaven. I don’t think you are kinder, braver, harder working, smarter or more moral than those who voted the other way.
In the end, the rich and powerful will keep on being rich and powerful. They’ll keep on pushing for laws that will make us work harder to earn less while they protect their own billions and zillions and gajillions.
Remember: this happened. It will no doubt happen again in the not too distant future.
We are NOT each other’s enemies. The press who reports on this bullshit is not the enemy. The people who make us attach each other in defense of THEM? They are our enemies.
Don’t mistake my point here. I hope, with every fiber of my being, that Donald Trump’s big old orange ass will land in jail in the not too distant future.
In the meantime? I refuse to inch any closer to civil war in defense of his actions or those who opposed him in the election.
I used to be a teacher. I used to spend a lot of time ruminating about what my kids were learning. I used to evaluate my lessons in order to carefully measure the exact idea that was being taught, and how well each child had mastered that concept.
I know, after thirty or so years of teaching kids, and after raising three of my own, that kids learn a LOT from what they observe. They don’t always grasp the fine points of the various graphs and pictures in their text books, but they do learn from what they see and hear.
So I’m wondering.
I’m wondering what our 8-16 year olds are learning in the age of Donald Trump. What are they taking away from the ongoing drama that keeps unfolding on our TV’s, in our social media, on the front pages of our newspapers? What have they figured out about successful behavior from the actions and reactions of their parents and other adults?
I have a few guesses, based on my decades of assessing children’s learning. See what you think, and let me know if you agree.
1. Lying is a powerful tool
Even though I’m sure that every kid in the country has gotten into trouble at least once for lying, they must be learning that if you lie often enough, your lie will be accepted.
I’m sure that our kids are watching as their President makes claims that are OBVIOUSLY lies. He claimed that thousands of Muslims were out on the streets of New York cheering when the towers came down on 9/11. There is no proof, no evidence, no pictures, no reports, no corroborating reporters. But Trump repeated the lie so many times that you can find people on Twitter now who repeat it as fact.
Our kids are learning how to lie. Do it often. Repeat as needed. Act completely convinced of the righteousness of your lie. Repeat again. Never back down.
Bam. Your lie has won the day.
2. Bullies Win
Donald Trump appears to have won the most important and powerful job in the country by being what every elementary kid would recognize as a bully. Our children have learned that its a good idea to call people ugly names. “Crooked Hillary”, “Little Marco”, “Slippery James Comey”.
Every kid at recess must be thinking about the social stature he can earn by making fun of “Fat Georgie” or “Jimmy the Fag.”
They must be wondering why their teachers pressure them to accept their disabled peers. I mean, Trump was applauded for publicly mocking a physically disabled reporter. Why should they be kind to that weird autistic kid in their math class?
Teachers and parents can’t really compete with the image of the most powerful man in the country and his powerful bullying attacks.
3. Blame everyone else
What can I say?
Donald Trump is happy to blame his spokespeople for repeating his bullshit. He is delighted to blame nonexistent voter fraud for his loss of the popular vote. He blames the “fake media” for pointing out his many lies, distortions and screw-ups.
The lesson for our children surely must be that best way to avoid the consequences of bad behavior isn’t to behave well. It’s to do whatever the hell you want, and then point the finger at someone else.
Awesome.
4. Take NO responsibility for any error. Ever.
Trump and his team have absolutely mastered the skill of looking right into the camera and saying, “I forgot.”
“Did you or any of your staff ever meet with any Russians, anywhere, at any time?”
“No, no, again we say, no!!!!”
And then when it is proven that your campaign manager, your top advisor, your own damn SON, actually met with a whole boatload of Russians on a whole boatload of different dates, you just shrug your shoulders and say, “Gosh. We forgot.”
Never mind the fact that if you guys actually are so addled and mentally deficient that you DID you forget, then you aren’t in any shape to be running the country.
Never mind that you are clearly demonstrating dementia.
You have taught our kids how to respond if we ask them, “Did you eat that chocolate cake I left on the counter for my office party?” Our kids will just give the big eyes and say. “Nope.”
When we point out the frosting smeared across their faces, they will just shrug their tiny shoulders and say, “I forgot.”
“I didn’t throw that toy in the toilet. It was that stupid kid. Or, if I did it, I just don’t remember.”
None of this is funny, although I’m trying my best to make you laugh.
None of this is normal.
We will be working hard for the next decade, at least, to undo the damage done by this lying, self absorbed, irresponsible blowhard and those who follow his lead.
I remember about ten thousand conversation where ten year old children were whispering to their friends that “He likes me, but I don’t know if he LIKES me.”
I remember at least 20 thousand conversations where one child confided in another, “I like her, but I don’t LIKE HER like her.”
They were little kids. They were trying to work out the nuances of enjoying someone’s company while a) not necessarily sharing any interests b) not necessarily agreeing with each other c) not wanting to run off and get married and make babies (how do you do that, anyway?)
When I was a teacher of young and innocent kids, these conversations made me smile. They made me appreciate the innocence of youth.
Now that I am a retired old grandmother, and the “He likes me!” comments are coming from the 73 year old, three times married President of the United States, my reaction is somewhat different.
I’m fighting off simultaneous urges to vomit and to run screaming into the night.
Yesterday I listened to Donald Trump’s comments as he left the G7 summit. I listened carefully to his every word.
And I must say, I have not changed my view that this man demonstrates a very significant language disorder.
He made many incomplete utterances. He left out specific nouns and verbs, leaving the impression that his ideas were drifting and pointless.
I suggest that you watch this video. Watch what happens when Trump strays from the script at about 3:18.
Note the incomplete, rambling thoughts. Note this mess:
“From the standpoint of trade and jobs and being fair to companies, we are really, I think, committed, I think they are really starting to be committed to a much more fair trade situation for the United States because it has been treated very unfairly…. Last year they lost 800, we as a nation, over the years, but, the latest numbers 817 billion dollars on trade and it’s unacceptable and everybody was told that.”
Say, what?
And then there was Trump’s assertion that our trade and international relationships were “a ten”, because the members of the G7 were reasonably polite to him.
He insisted that the relationships are fabulous because none of the leaders of the developed world stood up and called him a doody pants.
No matter what they thought of the big lying buffoon, all of the OTHER leaders of the free world had enough self control to be at least marginally civil to Donald J. Trump.
Unfortunately, that gave our incredibly immature national leader the impression that all of those other powerful people “liked” him. And that was enough for him.
He assumed that because they “liked” him, he could safely call them names, accuse them of theft, criticize his predecessors who had been dealing with them for decades, and then tell them exactly what they had to do.
He thought that being “liked” meant that nobody would get mad at him, no matter what.
I must tell you, as a former teacher of fifth graders with autism, oppositional defiant disorder, cognitive disabilities, language disorders and other learning and behavioral challenges, that this underdeveloped ability to comprehend the nuances of human relationships is a major problem.
Our country, our beloved United States of America, is in the hands of a person whose intellectual and emotional development has not yet reached the level of a ten year old. A person whose mastery of the English language is both immature and obviously disordered.
I have no idea what it is that goes on the mind of Donald J. Trump, but I am very, very sure that whatever it is, it is based on the ideas and beliefs of a selfish child. I am very, very sure that what he thinks is never articulated in a way that makes any sense.
I am very sure that we are in a very dangerous place right now. This country is being led by a pouting, angry child whose emotional, intellectual and linguistic development are all dangerously impaired.
I submit the following for your edification, enlightenment and possible humbling mortification.
I used to teach fifth grade. The kids in my class were all about ten years old. They were old enough to understand the basic rules of how to get along, but young enough to still need a lot of guidance.
They were kids.
Young, young kids.
This essay is a composite of about 853 such conversations that I had with students over my ten years as a classroom teacher. The names were changed because, seriously, this could have been any fifth grader at any time in any place.
“Karen, I need your help! Jackie was mean to me!”
“Jackie, what did you do to Jason?”
“Nothin. I just called him a fat wussy pants jerk face noodle head.”
Jason sniffles and looks at me with huge blue eyes, filled with righteous pain and anger. “See? He was so. MEAN.”
I sigh. I rub my forehead. I look at the culprit, sitting in front of me in his baggy blue shirt, with his recess sweaty hair in his big brown eyes. He looks away. He knows he did something mean. Fifth graders know mean when they see it, even if it comes from themselves.
“Jackie? What do you have to say about this?”
A shrug. “Well, I didn’t mean it. It was a joke.”
I look at my little student with my most serious teacher face.
“Jackie,” I say sternly. “You know what a joke is. What makes something a joke?”
He drops his head. The shrug reappears.
“A joke is something that makes everybody in the room laugh. A joke makes people feel happy inside. Did your words today make everybody laugh? Did everyone feel happy?”
“No.” It’s only a whisper, but, still, he said it and I am proud of him.
“What you said wasn’t a joke because it hurt someone. It hurt just as much has hitting with a fist would hurt. What you said wasn’t a joke. What was it?”
Now the shoulders are drooping, the chin is almost on the chest. Now my ten year old student is truly feeling bad about what he did.
“I was being mean. I was making fun of someone.”
“I’m proud of you!” I tell him honestly. “You admitted that you were wrong. You are a strong and brave boy. Good for you. Now what do you think you should do?”
Jackie looks at Jason, a classmate he’s known for years. Both boys are teary eyed. Both are tender.
“I’m sorry.”
Jackie thinks that he means it, but I have to push a little bit more.
“OK,” I say. “You said you were sorry. Do you think that takes away your bad choice? Does it take away Jason’s sadness?”
The answer is obvious to any ten year old. A simple, “sorry” doesn’t erase the pain or the hurt. It doesn’t mean that you didn’t screw up. It doesn’t mean that you don’t need to make amends.
At this point I would usually let my two students hug or shake hands or say, “It’s OK.” I’d send them back to class.
But before the end of that day, I’d catch up with “Jackie” again, and ask him if he had thought about what he could do to show Jason that he didn’t mean those cruel words. That he had respect for his classmate and that he wanted to make it right again.
In the world of elementary school teaching, this is called an “apology of action.” It is designed to make the one who did the hurting take some kind of definitive action to elevate the one who was hurt. In that world, it means picking the one you targeted for the recess basketball team, or letting them sit in the best spot in the library. It means giving them some of your snack or choosing them for your math buddy.
Ten year old kids are able to understand that “It was a joke” is a very feeble excuse for being a jerk. They were able to grasp that a simple, “Sorry” can’t take away the hurt that words have caused.
They are little kids. But they get it.
Are you listening, adults in Washington DC, Hollywood, the media, the networks? Are you listening?
We know you by your words and by your actions. And we know it isn’t a joke if most of us aren’t laughing.
We’re constantly wondering, we Americans, what exactly has gotten into our government leaders. We watch them bluster and blather. We hear them pontificate and pander.
But do they ever actually accomplish anything? Pass any new laws? Set some clear policies? I don’t know, maybe figure out an actual workable year long budget?
Nope, nope and nuh-uh.
Don’t you wonder why?
Well, I think I’ve figured it out. It’s actually pretty simple.
They don’t have time to govern! These are very busy people!!!
I mean, look what our leaders are up to at the moment.
Yup. The big boss of our duly elected House of Representatives is doing his best to prevent his opponents (also our duly elected representatives) from working to get our votes. He doesn’t have time to legislate.
Then there’s this:
See? They don’t have time for insignificant details like keeping the lights on, or protecting our Social Security. They can’t be bothered with the minutiae of approving or disapproving of the bombs we drop overseas. They’re busy with pre-emptive actions to prevent something that hasn’t happened and might never happen.
These people are BUSY! They have important work to do!
For example,
Oh, sure, Mrs. Clinton LOST the election that took place almost a year and a half ago. Comey has been fired. But our Congress is busy trying to root out any possible infraction of any possible law that one of them might have committed at some point in the past. They don’t have time to work together to reach a compromise on little things like the impending death of the planet.
So it’s easy to see that our members of Congress are so busy trying to poke each other in the eye that they can’t be bothered with keeping the country going.
I suggest that we lock them all in a big room and let them play a killer round of “Words With Friends” or “Trivial Pursuit.” Or maybe “Cards Against Humanity.” The winning team gets to run things for six months, then there’s a rematch.
It would save us billions of tax dollars in “investigations” and, God willing, we’d never have to hear the words “Benghazi” or “Pee-pee tape” ever again.
I love my puppy Lennie. He is sweet, energetic, full of love. He is cute. He’s silly. My granddaughter even said to me this week, “You need a new Lennie. This one is crazy!”
I mean, the nutty little fool chases his own tail every time he gets excited! That’s pretty crazy.
My sweet little canine buddy is also…how shall I put this?….Um…
Welp. He’s as dumb as a rock.
How do I know this?
I know it because sometimes I want to get him down into the backyard so that I can close the gate and keep him away from the slider doors while I’m having company. When I need to move my happy, loopy, goofy little guy out of the way, I step out onto the deck and pretend to throw a ball into the yard. I yell, with great excitement, “Go get it, boy!!!!”
And my darling dopie head runs down the stairs and chases….nothing.
See why this dumb-de-dumb-dumb behavior makes me think of the media?
You don’t???
Well. Think about this. North Korea has tested the most dangerous weapon in the past 50 years. The Special Prosecutor is closing in on our President. The Secretary of State is about to be fired.
And what’s going on?
The President spends his time tweeting out pure unadulterated bullshit. He actually retweeted several posts from the British version of the KKK. Videos that are fake. Videos that are ugly. Videos that only the most ignorant knuckle draggers among us would watch. Videos that try to convince us that all Muslims are dangerous criminals.
And what happened?
The media raced down the steps after the big old fake bone. They’re covering it in detail, giving it all kind of legitimacy that it doesn’t deserve.
The media isn’t talking about the mega rocket aimed at our hearts. It isn’t talking about the horrendous tax “reform” package that will make the rich even richer.
Nope. The media, lead by CNN, is chasing its tail all around the muddy backyard. Barking at the idiocy of those stupid, ignorant, pointless videos.
So.
This is why the media in our country, at this insane moment in time, reminds me of my beloved but not very bright little dog.
Or maybe a better title for this post would be “Mental Anguish in the Time of Trump.”
I love politics. I have been following political news since before the days of Watergate. I’ve always found it fascinating to follow the actions and words of our national leaders. Even when I have vehemently disagreed with a President or Congress, I’ve enjoyed the arguments, the discussions, the matching of wits with those who disagree.
I don’t feel that way anymore.
Now, like so many other Americans, I am overwhelmed with what is happening to my country. I’m anxious, even afraid, for the first time in a very long time. But that’s not all.
I was talking all of this over with my husband, the other day. And I realized that what feels unbearable to me right now is the uncomfortable combination of rage and helplessness that hits me in the face every single day.
Rage.
I am feeling true rage about our President and those fools in Congress. Tearing away every kind of protection that our government has put in place for us. Regulations designed to keep our air and water at least marginally safe? Gone under this administration. I’m old enough to remember when our rivers were on fire and our harbors were so toxic that falling meant an immediate trip to the Emergency Room.
I’m enraged that Donald Trump is sending us back there.
Angry doesn’t begin to describe how I feel about Trump’s one sided assault on our insurance system. Congress couldn’t find a way to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act, so Trump is taking a machete to it. It doesn’t matter how many people will lose coverage. It doesn’t matter how many people die.
Trump wants it to happen, so he’s making it happen.
And the list goes on, of course. Impending nuclear war with North Korea threatens the whole world, but Trump just keeps on tweeting. The United States will ignore its allies, pull out of legal treaties, go to war with anyone who annoys the man in the Oval. The NRA will keep its stranglehold on our government and more and more innocent people will die.
And then there are the lies. One after the other, day after day after day. Trump lies, lies, lies and lies some more. EVERYONE knows it. The entire media knows about it, but when they call him out, he screams, “Fake! Fake!” and repeats whatever lie it was.
That’s what brings me to the feeling of helplessness.
I am used to contacting my Congressional Reps. I contact them by mail, by email, by phone, when I think that there is an issue that needs their attention.
But what am I supposed to do now? My Congress people agree with me! They know that Trump is dangerous, unhinged, dishonest, amoral. They’re as scared as I am.
Should I march in the streets, the way I did at the Women’s March in DC and the anti-Nazi march in Boston?
It feels good when we do it, that’s for sure.
But NOTHING seems to change.
When you are living in a country that has suddenly been turned on its head, what do you do? When you find yourself going through your daily life under a President who make up his own facts, threatens the press, mocks his colleagues, admires the worst among us and lies with a completely straight face….Well. What are you supposed to do to ease that sense of fear and rage?
I feel completely helpless.
We are dealing with a completely surreal situation here. Our President wakes up every morning and tells us things that are simply untrue. He’s contradicted by those who know the truth. He repeats his made up facts. And he repeats them again.
Up has become down. The sky is pink. Trump’s agenda is, according to him, “ahead of schedule.” No President in history has been as successful as he is. No President was smarter. Or a better negotiator.
Facts no longer matter. The truth has become as malleable as hot taffy.
What are we to do?
I no longer believe that I can do a single thing to make things better or safer for my family. Now my goal is to find a way to maintain my own mental health as I sit back and watch our leaders fail to cope with the fact that we have elected a madman and he is taking us on a path of destruction.
Rage and helplessness.
Not a good mix. Not a great way to move through middle age.
What do we do? How are you holding onto your fragile sanity in an age of total insanity?
Empty Nest, Full Life 