Tag Archives: Trump administration

Do Americans Understand They’re Torturing Little Kids? (article by Umair Haque)

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Adan Galicia Lopez, 3, was separated from his mother for four months.  Credit…Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

This article by writer Umair Haque was written back when the border crisis situation with its family separations and caging of children was a big story in the news, and was still able to shock us.  While we don’t hear much about it anymore (many people assume the problem has been resolved), these acts of mental, emotional and physical torture have not stopped, and in fact they have increased.  The family separations and torture of little brown children from places like Honduras and Guatemala has continued unabated.  The reason they are no longer reported is because they no longer have the same capacity to shock, as the Trump regime ups the ante and keeps us in a constant state of chaos and uncertainty as he continues to build his dictatorship.   Under this cruel and barbarous administration, we have become inured to the heinous.  Acts of cruelty that would have been front page news four years ago have become normalized to the point it they no longer considered newsworthy.

This article isn’t an easy read, but it will bring back the horror we once felt when we first learned about what was happening to these children, by putting you inside the mind of one.  ICE and Border Patrol, two arms of Trump’s neofascist regime, are not merely  immigration enforcement agencies (which are necessary);  under “King” Trump, they have transformed, and one of their new goals is to shatter the minds of children who aren’t lucky enough to be born white.   Why? Because they can.  Trump, as a malignant narcissist, has easily observable sadistic tendencies, and those who work for him are required to be as cruel and compassionless as he is.   Trump’s immigration czar, the odious, dead eyed Stephen Miller, is so sociopathic I could easily see him as a serial killer if he did not have the connections to power that he does.   To this regime, nothing matters except power.

We have become the bad guys.  Maybe we were never that good.

We cannot forget. We cannot stop caring.  Once we do, all hope for a brighter future is lost.

Do Americans Understand They’re Torturing Little Kids?

Institutionalized soul murder.

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“If you’ve been following me for some time now, you’ve likely noticed the absence of optimism & hope. While my wife is at work, and my son is in school, I just cry. I’m trying to hide it from them, but they know. I just want to leave this country before I’m destroyed.”  — Twitter user

If you think statements like this are unusual, I can assure you they are not.

Several days ago, Jussie Smollet, “Empire” actor, singer, director, and photographer, was brutally attacked by a couple of Trump supporters wearing MAGA hats (the new KKK hood).  The assailants tied a rope around the man’s neck, yelled racial and homophobic slurs at him, and poured bleach on him.    As the assailants left, they yelled “It’s MAGA country now.”   Smollet’s injuries were severe enough to require hospitalization.  This was a hate crime and most likely an attempted lynching.   Trump is doing everything he can to turn back the clock to the Jim Crow days, and we are almost there.

Indeed, Trump emboldens such violent attacks because of his hateful, racist, misogynistic, and neofascist rhetoric, especially at his rallies.   His hostile and bullying bluster contains obvious “dogwhistles” to his supporters, letting them know that attacking or bullying people who are different than they are is just fine in Trump’s America.

Not long before the Smollet attack, four good samaritans left food and water near the Mexican border for tired, hungry migrants (who are almost all women and children, not the caravans of violent MS-13 gang members and drug dealers Trump keeps screaming about).   Police arrested the kindhearted samaritans, and charged all four of them with misdemeanors!   Why misdemeanors?  For showing empathy?  That’s insane.

Meanwhile, homegrown terrorists, neo-Nazis, and high school racists are invited to the White House, are interviewed on TV, and sometimes treated like heroes–or at least their actions are dismissed as “boys will be boys” or “well, some of them are very fine people.”

A Trump supporting politician named Greg Gianforte body slammed a reporter last year for asking him questions.  He  was held up as a hero for attacking a journalist, and even won his state election, while the injured reporter was vilified as an “enemy of the people.”   (Gianforte later apologized).

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who very believably and painfully described the way she had been  sexually assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh, was told she was lying by Fox News pundits and Trump’s sycophants.   She was then mocked cruelly by Trump himself at one of his rallies (after Ford said the most painful part of the assault had been the way Kavanaugh and his friends mocked her — I’m sure this was not a coincidence).  Ford’s testimony was dismissed as a bunch of lies, while Kavanaugh, clearly temperamentally unsuited to serve on the Supreme Court, was painted by Trump and the GOP as some sort of misunderstood victim who was being unfairly attacked by lying, spiteful women who just wanted their 15 minutes of fame.   He now sits on the Supreme Court.

Central American children and their parents escaping certain death in their home countries, instead of being instructed in how to apply for asylum (these families are showing up legally at ports of entry) are being caged and forcibly separated from each other by ICE and border patrol agents, then tossed into concentration camps with only a foil blanket for warmth and inadequate food and medical care.   Two children have died in these camps. Unbelievably,  some evangelical Republicans are actually calling these cruel actions “biblical.”  Meanwhile, Democrats and others wanting to see the children reunited with their families and treated with kindness and empathy are dismissed as misguided or even evil.  We are gaslighted and told we just want “open borders,” but that too is a lie.

Undocumented immigrant families are released from detention at a bus depot in McAllen

Photo by Loren Elliott/Reuters

In “The Handmaid’s Tale,”  there is a scene where one of the girls is severely punished and returns with her feet bleeding and barely able to walk.  The other girls feel empathy for her, but don’t dare show it, because if they do, they too will be punished.   The same thing was also practiced in the migrant camps at the border, where siblings and other children were ordered not to hold or comfort each other, even after having been separated from their parents.   I don’t know whether or not they were punished if they broke the rules, but the fact such a rule exists is concerning.  It’s institutionalized cruelty.

There’s a reason for this besides just being cruel.  It’s an effective way populations can be controlled.  If you don’t allow people to comfort or show empathy to each other, they won’t rise up or try to overthrow their oppressors.   Hitler and other dictators were  known for doing this.  It’s also a way to fast track the destruction of human beings.   Don’t allow them any hope or comfort.   It’s an effective form of emotional torture.

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Meanwhile, cruelty is rewarded and applauded.  At the very least, it seems to be tolerated a lot more than it used to be.

Our values have been turned inside and twisted beyond recognition by a group of men (and a few women) whose only goal is absolute power.  Evil is now good, and good is evil.  Lies are the truth, and the truth is fake news.   Kindness and empathy are now bad and diabolical, cruelty and violence are godly and good.  Truthtellers are silenced, and liars are given a voice.

War is peace.  Freedom is slavery.  Ignorance is strength.  — George Orwell (1984)

The people having the hardest time under the Trump regime aren’t necessarily the poor (as difficult or even impossible as their lives are), but people with high sensitivity, high empathy, high creativity, and people who are critical, independent thinkers.    This regime is threatened by all those things, just as narcissistic parents are threatened and scapegoat the most sensitive, empathetic child or the child who speaks the truth and exposes the family’s dark secrets.

I have heard many people say that since Trump became president,  they feel constantly on edge, suicidal, depressed, cry every day,  have lost interest in things that once interested them, feel like they can no longer cope, want to leave the country, are constantly afraid, feel constantly angry, isolate from others, feel sick all the time, or feel dead and numb inside.  These are all indications of PTSD and C-PTSD.  Trump and his sociopathic, cruel regime has triggered or retriggered these disorders in many (if not most) Americans, but it’s the sensitive, empathic, and creative, artistic types of people who are suffering the most, and are least able to thrive under an oppressive, authoritarian regime.   At the same time, these are the same people who are most likely to be the truthtellers  and whistleblowers we need so badly right now.

What the Trump GOP is doing is institutionalized soul murder.

Enough.

Don’t call yourself pro-life (updated)

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I originally wrote this post on October 2, 2017, more than a year ago. It was the day after the tragic Las Vegas shootings.   I really can’t believe that happened over a year ago.  It seems like it was yesterday, but now that we’re living in Trump time, time itself has a way of seeming frighteningly slowed down or speeded up.   In fact, everything seems pretty strange and definitely not normal.   In the two years since Trump was elected, I feel like I’ve aged about ten.

So, here is that post again, with some additions, since so much has happened in a year (way too much to keep up with!).

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Don’t even think about calling yourself pro-life if…

  • You support taking health insurance away from low income, sick, and disabled people.
  • You support abolishing or cutting Medicaid (which covers HALF of all pregnant women and 45 million children).
  • You  support privatizing or cutting Medicare and Social Security.
  • You want to abolish Planned Parenthood, which is NOT an abortion clinic (only 2% of their services are abortion-related) but provides healthcare (including pregnancy care) and birth control information to low income women.
  • You’re OK with a president who allowed CHIP (a health insurance program for low income children who do not qualify for Medicaid) to expire, leaving millions of children uninsured.
  • You support dismantling public schools.
  • You support removing laws that protect college women from on-campus rapists and give more rights to the rapists.
  • You think programs like Meals on Wheels and school lunches are a waste of taxpayer money.
  • You think climate change is a hoax.
  • You support fracking, drilling, and mining on our public lands.
  • You believe in removing laws that protect our air and water against pollution.
  • You think laws that protect consumers from dangerous products and predatory  practices is interfering with free enterprise.
  • You support the death penalty.
  • You support the idea of using torture on suspected terrorists.
  • You believe in detaining documented immigrants, even when it means separating parents from their children.
  • You support deporting refugee mothers and their children, even when it means they could die horribly in their countries of origin.
  • You support deporting productive young people who came here as children with their parents, even when it means sending them back to countries they can’t remember and know nothing about.
  • You think Puerto Ricans who have been devastated by a Category 5 hurricane and have no food, electricity, or drinking water “aren’t doing enough for themselves.”
  • You demand “respect for the flag and the Anthem” but don’t respect people’s right to exercise their First Amendment rights.
  • You’re okay with a president who plays nuclear chicken on Twitter with an unstable rogue nation dictator because his ego is hurt.
  • You think we should “completely destroy” North Korea, even its innocent civilians, women, and children.
  • You’re okay with a president who in all likelihood sold our democracy out to a hostile foreign power.
  • You’re okay with police brutality, especially against people of color.
  • You admire dictators and bullies.
  • You think white supremacy, Naziism, and racism are okay.
  • You’re okay with a president who treats women with disrespect and brags about grabbing their private parts.
  • You don’t see anything wrong with a president who plays golf and complains about NFL players exercising their First Amendment rights when people are dying of thirst and starvation in Puerto Rico.
  • You agree with Trump lifting gun checks on people with mental illness (Las Vegas shooting is a tragic consequence of that).
  • If, even after the Parkland school shooting (and many other school shootings this year), you still don’t believe there should be any age restrictions or background checks for buying guns, and/or you don’t think assault weapons (AR-15s) and bump stocks should be banned.
  • You approve of the Trump policy of separating toddlers and babies from their mothers, and breaking up families as a “deterrent” to other migrants thinking of coming here.
  • You think it’s okay to lock migrants in cages or rip them from their parents or children, even the ones who have come here legally and are only seeking asylum from a much worse situation in their home countries, where their own or their childrens’ lives are in danger.
  • You support the Trump policy of putting migrant children in cages.
  • You believe (as one very sick Republican politician said the other day) a woman who has an abortion should receive the death penalty.
  • You think confirming an alleged sexual predator and rapist who also has an obvious anger management and drinking issues to a SCOTUS seat is acceptable.
  • You always believe a male abuser over a female victim, and think what happened to her is somehow her own fault — or that she is lying.
  • You support a president who looks up to, admires, has secret meetings with, or “falls in love with” brutal dictators of oppressive, authoritarian regimes.
  • You support a president who refuses to put sanctions on or criticize brutal regimes that murder and dismember American residents because he makes a profit from that regime.

I could go on for pages, but I think I made my point.   If you oppose abortion but support any of the things above, you aren’t pro-life.  All you are is a  hypocrite.  Outside of the abortion issue, the Trump regime is the most anti-life group of miscreants, sociopaths, abusers, serial liars, malignant narcissists, traitors, grifters, and criminals I’ve ever seen.

No one has selective empathy only for the unborn.   That makes no sense.  No, the people running this country right now have no empathy.  They are a sociopathic regime headed by a malignant narcissist who uses the abortion issue to pander to his largely right wing evangelical base and keep the support of his dominionist donors.   The only reason this regime wants to overturn Roe v. Wade is to control women (Kavanaugh thinks even birth control should be illegal), NOT to protect the unborn.  They don’t care about the unborn, or anyone else.  All they care about is wealth and power.

Sociopaths rule America — but there’s an easy way to identify them.

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<> on January 7, 2016 in Washington, DC.
The above photo, taken at a beer party celebrating “Trumpcare” passing the House last May, drove home to me exactly how cruel and sadistic Trump’s people really are.   It hit me like a ton of bricks.  They are literally laughing over millions of people losing their healthcare.

Since the very beginning of his term, Trump has surrounded himself with people who seem to lack empathy, conscience, or any sense of morality or scruples.    The good people left this administration early on, or were fired.   Later, those people who weren’t so good, but who still had some semblance of a conscience or morals lost their jobs or resigned.

By a process of attrition, Trump’s cabinet is now almost 100% sociopathic.    Trump doesn’t seem to care if the people who work for him care about We the People or have any sense of right from wrong or duty to the country.  In fact, it’s better for Trump if they don’t.   All Trump cares about is their loyalty to him.      Never do you see a shred of empathy from any of these people.   Human suffering doesn’t seem to bother them.  In fact, they seem to delight in causing it.   They never apologize or admit wrongdoing.  In fact, they’re very likely to project their own wrongdoings onto others, smearing and gaslighting innocent people and groups.  Their greed, sense of entitlement, arrogance, and selfishness is bottomless.   We have grifters like Scott Pruitt, whose outrageous and illegal fleecing of the taxpayers for his own self-benefit and entertainment may rival or even surpass Trump’s own.   As if it’s not already bad enough he’s ruining the environment and destroying the EPA from within (which is entirely intentional).   And yet he keeps his job.   In fact, Pruitt may be the one who gets to fire Bob Mueller should Trump fire Jeff Sessions.

All of the people working for Trump, based on their actions and words, seem to have one of the Cluster B personality disorders, most likely NPD, Antisocial PD (sociopathy), or psychopathy.    Many of these people are likely malignant narcissists, like Trump himself.  They serve as his flying monkeys and yes-men. 

There may be one or two non-disordered people left in the administration, who have severe problems with codependency and therefore have some pathological need to be pleasing to Trump, but I think even most of those people have been fired.  People with normal levels of empathy, who don’t feel entitled to cheat and steal, who care about the rule of law, and who have any integrity at all are nonexistent in this administration, and that is scary.

Their one saving grace is it’s fairly easy to identify them.

You can see it in their faces.

One thing I’ve noticed about Trump’s cabinet members, his most fervent sycophants and enablers,  his three elder children, and many Republicans who support this president is the deadness in their eyes.    Their eyes are cold, hard, and flat.   Sometimes they appear black, as if they are lacking irises.  When they smile, the smile doesn’t reach their eyes, making the smile appear mocking or threatening, or at the least insincere.

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NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch showing those cold, dead, black eyes.  Her expression is constantly angry and hate filled.   I strongly suspect malignant narcissism.  Coupled with those eyes that look like miniature black holes, her overall appearance is extremely intimidating — and that may be the point of using her in their ads.

Jared-Kushner-Getty
Jared Kushner has possibly the deadest looking eyes I’ve ever seen on a living person.  He literally looks like he’s dead.   He sold his soul a long, long time ago. Trump’s three oldest children also have the same dead look, though not as pronounced as Kushner.

A few of these people, rather than having those dead reptilian eyes, have eyes that sparkle with psychopathic glee, and they often wear a smirk, especially when they know their policies are hurting others (I’m looking at you, Paul Ryan).

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When is Paul Ryan ever not smirking?   Sometimes I think it’s his only facial expression.

Trump himself has eyes that are so scary I really can’t look at them.   I can’t even look at his face anymore, because I feel evil emanating from the image itself.   I feel like something in my soul is being eaten every time I have to look at him.    Malignant narcissists like Trump get worse over time, especially if they are given access to a great deal of power and influence.  Narcissistic supply is like a drug that increases the malignant narcissist’s need for even more adulation and worship.  As they try to consolidate even more power, their malevolence increases, and this can be chillingly seen in Trump’s facial expressions over time.   He never laughs.  When he smiles, which is rare, his smile is fake and never reaches his eyes.  Most of his recent photos are like this one, showing a combination of malevolence and childish petulance.  Others show him looking as enraged as a rabid dog, especially the ones taken at his hate-rallies.

President Trump Holds Joint Press Conference With Japanese PM Shinzo Abe
Trump’s default expression (besides abject rage) is childish petulance mixed with malevolence and festering hate.

Jack Brown, MD, is a physician who is an expert in reading body language and facial expressions.     He said there is a particular expression that sociopaths and malignant narcissists use much more frequently than normal people: what he calls the Elevated Central Forehead Contraction with a Partial (Insincere) Mouth Smile.  It’s a closed mouth, fake smile with the eyebrows drawn together as if the person is frowning.  It’s similar to a smirk, but not quite.  The overall effect is  mocking condescension and cruel contempt.   Brown says this expression is used often by serial killers, mass murderers, hardened criminals, and by everyday bullies and other people who lack empathy.

Here’s a very obvious example of this expression on hedge fund manager and convicted felon Martin Shkreli (the guy who became infamous for jacking up drug prices to ridiculous rates, making them unaffordable for most people).  He used it continuously while on trial during questioning.

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Martin Shkreli on trial, displaying Dr. Brown’s Elevated Central Forehead Contraction with Partial Mouth Smile, a dead giveaway of a disordered personality.

Here is the same expression, on Trump (who seems to use it quite frequently):
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Brown says the ECFCWPMS is a default expression for Vladimir Putin (it’s a lot more subtle on him but is ever-present).  Putin appears to be a pure psychopath, rather than a malignant narcissist (which is why Trump looks up to him and tries to curry his favor).  Pure psychopaths are “stronger” than “mere” narcissists, who have that pesky neediness and emotional vulnerability that bring them so much shame.

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Stephen Miller (below) combines a cruel smirk with the reptilian dead eyes.  I think of him as the Joseph Goebbels of the Trump administration.   Trump naturally adores this guy and will probably never fire him.

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Identifying human predators. 

If you are face to face with a sociopathic personality, you may feel as if their eyes are boring into your soul.   This is because they are human predators — they are sizing you up as potential prey and victims.   On a date or with a new person, you may feel as if the predatory stare indicates sexual or romantic interest. Failing to make the distinction between the predatory stare and sexual/romantic interest leads many a woman (and man) into dangerous and abusive relationships with people who live only to use other people because they don’t see them as fully human.

Beauty tip:  Constant lying may ruin your appearance! 

Another thing I’ve noticed is several of the women in the Trump administration, especially those whose job requires them to lie constantly to the public, attain a facial asymmetry that gets worse over time.   It also seems to age them faster than normal.  I don’t know if there’s anything scientific behind this phenomenon, but I have come to believe that constant lying will do this to your facial features.  If you want to retain your physical beauty, then, tell the truth!   Lying is, apparently, bad for both your soul and your physical appearance!

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Huckabee Sanders looks like this whenever she’s lying.  Her eyes literally focus in two different directions and is very unsettling.   She’s only 35 years old but looks like she’s in her 50’s.  She has aged visibly since she took this post.

Kellyanne Conway
Can you trust a face that looks like this?   Constant lying has apparently done this to Kellyanne Conway’s face.  She used to be a fairly attractive woman until she took her job in the Trump administration.

The other day I read an article that said there is a new bill the GOP is trying to pass that will require a photo of Trump (and Pence) to be hung in every Post Office.   That’s something dictators do, not leaders of democracies.   Isn’t it bad enough we are daily inundated with sound bites and constant images of this president?  We can’t get away from him.  No other president has dominated the media, our conversations, our thoughts, and our very lives the way he has done.
What’s next — requiring that every American household hang a photo of Dear Leader in a conspicuous place, like they do in North Korea?

The old saying about “birds of a feather” are true.  Sociopaths and malignant narcissists like Trump attract other sociopaths and malignant narcissists, and they seek them out.   That’s because they know anyone with a conscience or empathy for others will refuse to work for them.    That’s where we’re at now.   We’re a country run by sociopaths.

For the sake of our own souls, our nation, and the world, learn to identify them.

Republican Steve Schmidt’s rant about crooks and weirdos in the White House.

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I don’t usually post stuff from political pundits, but I’m making an exception here.

If only all Republicans were like strategist Steve Schmidt, Trump and his ever-changing clown car of criminals would be long gone.   He tells the truth about this administration, which is nothing but an organized crime syndicate serving as a piggy bank and power grab for America’s greediest sociopaths.   Their only goal outside of getting filthy rich and powerful at the expense of the working people of this country is to destroy everything that was ever good about America and replace it with a fascist dictatorship.

I may not agree with all of  Schmidt’s politics, but he’s a decent man who isn’t afraid to speak truth to power.   He’s also hilarious.     This isn’t the first of his epic rants against the Trump administration.  You can catch him on Nicolle Wallace’s show every day on MSNBC.

Republican Strategist Goes on Epic Rant About “Assemblage of Crooks” and “Outright Weirdos” Working for Trump

What if we really are living in The Matrix and are just extras trapped in a terrible TV show from the future?

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You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” ―Morpheus, to Neo, in The Matrix.

I read an article this morning that was probably meant to be dark humor but is also an interesting thought-experiment.    Here it is, for your pleasure (or horror):

What If There Is No Reality  — and This is Just a Bad Netflix Series? 

Laugh if you want, but listen up:  we don’t even know what reality is in these United States anymore, so can we say for certain that we aren’t actually trapped in some computer simulation, movie, or TV show intended for a superior race of aliens’ or future humans’ entertainment?

So, what if we’re really just extras trapped in a future race’s bad TV series or computer simulation?

I mean, nothing about our “new reality” seems real. Reality itself (at least as most of us define it) is even called fiction…by some.   In fact, when you think about it, this — TV series (or whatever it is) isn’t even particularly well written.   In some ways, it’s downright laughable and would probably never win the superaliens’ version of an Emmy.  It would probably rate a zero on a futuristic Rotten Tomatoes.  It’s got everything a bad (but nevertheless insanely popular with the masses) TV series could ever hope for:

It’s got one-dimensional (thoroughly evil: no humanizing qualities) cartoon villains and Central Casting heroes.  

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Roy Moore and his little silver pistol.

The Main Characters: a shady, bald, glinty-eyed, mysterious Russian dictator (“Vlad”) with a six-pack; an orange skinned toupee-wearing golf-cart-riding not-too-bright Mafia-connected ex-reality show star POTUS named “Trump” (look up the definition of the words “trump” and “trumpery” — no way can he be real!) who runs the country through his Twitter account (and was even gifted a gold toilet to tweet from); the unkempt and unbathed Lenin-loving, racist, anarchist (antichrist?), alcoholic failed filmmaker Steve Bannon;  the smug and smackable Atlas Shrugged-toting Paul Ryan with his deceptively innocent-looking baby blue orbs and Eddie Munster widow’s peak;  the Bible thumping nutcase Pence who calls his wife “Mother” and secretly harbors a mancrush on Trump; a couple of sycophantic constantly lying female supporting characters, whose facial features become ever more twisted and unattractive the more they lie;  the villainous Fred Flintstone-looking fake-news peddling Trump mouthpiece Sean Hannity; Trump’s idiotic and arrogant sons who are always unintentionally throwing Daddy under the bus with their own boneheaded tweets; Trump’s simpering but glamorous daughter and her rich Jewish corporate-elite slumlord husband; an actual Nazi (Stephen Miller) who looks like the undead and is really a self-hating Jew; and finally, a minor character (Devin Nunes) from the middle of Season One known only for his Three Stooges-like stupidity, who suddenly becomes a major character early in Season Two (Plot Twist!)  with his much-anticipated and feared “!The Memo!” which turns out to be not just underwhelming, but a four-page hastily-written nothingburger.   The bad guys, like the Keystone Kops, never stop sabotaging themselves with their desperate and bone-headed attempts to obstruct justice and escape the law.   The good guys (Mueller, Comey, a few others) are ridiculously good  — and good looking.  And tall.  They also apparently don’t talk.

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Saint Bob.

Plenty of other cartoonish characters have come and gone and sometimes have been featured in special starring cameo roles:  the bumbling would-be villain Sean Spicer, mostly remembered for his panicked dive into the White House bushes to hide from the media and later on (after he bailed out) proved refreshingly able to poke fun at himself as a guest on Saturday Night Live; the weak-willed enabler/boot-licker and favorite Trump punching bag Reince Preibus (I gotta give the writers kudos on his name), who is mostly remembered for being the Official Oval Office Fly Swatter;  a sleazy mall-stalking Bible-thumping cartoon cowboy pedophile from ‘Bama with a cartoon cowboy name (Roy Moore, really?) and the horse (“Sassy”) he rode in on; and of course, how can we ever forget The Mooch’s starring role on his own single episode — a TV trope obviously borrowed from The Sopranos.

It’s got a hackneyed theme/plot too unbelievable to be real. 

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Vlad knows the joke’s on you.

The writers of this show must have known how popular James Bond like-characters and Russian espionage capers have always been with modern Americans, so they dreamed up a TV series that had those elements and so many more that we know and love.  And then they gave us an unexpected goodie: they put us in the show! They dropped us right there in the middle of the action, as the confused, overwhelmed, and terrified “American people.”  How sweet of them!   I’m still waiting for my paycheck.

Basic plotline:  The United States Government is covertly attacked and all its institutions dismantled and destroyed by Russian oligarchs (who better than the Russians for covert operations?), led by a power-hungry ex-KGB agent still mad about the Cold War and intent on revenge.   Vlad is as smart as he is wicked though, and he knows how gullible the American people can be, and how desperate they are for “change.”  He realizes the best way to wage war against the United States is not to nuke it from without (like Reagan feared), but to divide and then destroy it from within — by hacking into its presidential election and rigging things (using a flood of propaganda-spewing social media bots and Eastern European fake news mills) to ensure the new president is the dumbest, most embarrassing, most vile, most morally bankrupt — and also the most butt-licking and obedient — character he could possibly install for his coup to be successful.  The GOP enablers look away as if none of this is happening or it’s just business as usual.  None dare call it treason.

It’s got TV tropes and stereotypes galore.

scaramucci

Anthony “The Mooch” Scaramucci: Trump staffer or cast member of Godfather Part IV?

The way this all plays out is a disorienting cascade of increasingly surreal and sometimes unintentionally hilarious episodes and vignettes worthy of David Lynch at his weirdest, complete with insane and incomprehensible plot twists completely lacking in credibility or realism; and a crazily revolving door of cast members constantly jumping ship or getting fired.

Almost every overused stereotype and TV trope is here: torch-bearing Nazis, slippery jet-setting crooks and traitors (Manafort and Flynn), actual Russian spies; the beautiful but unhappy foreign-born First Lady who never smiles and apparently hates her husband; dumb-as-a-brick Southern yahoos straight out of Deliverance, an Attorney General with a name from the 1850s South and values from the same time and place; silent — and did I say tall — White Knights who stand for Truth and Justice; a simpering and spineless assortment of enablers and sycophants who come and go like flies on a pile of drying dog turds; a low level “Coffee Boy” who turns out to be a key player in the Russian caper (Plot Twist!);  an inept and bumbling Congress populated by glowering old white rich guys who would be the first to kick your kids off their lawn (and toss Grandma off her Medicare); backstabbing and stupid minor villains who keep turning on each other; and more chaos and drama than a Kardashian can shake a well-manicured index finger at.  There are shady Mafia-esque characters who would put Don Corleone to shame.

Far in the background — really part of the scenery — is the presence of something called The Resistance:  an amorphous motley crew of racially integrated pink pussy hat wearing folks of all ages who stand behind the tall, silent, and moose-jawed lead Good Guy Bob Mueller who is trying to take down our lead villain (and maybe the whole cabal).  There is also “The Base” — a virtual cult of thug-like Trump worshippers all wearing identical red MAGA baseball caps, waving Confederate (and sometimes American) flags, singing God Bless America, and who go home to watch Fox News every night after a long day at the plant or clerking at the Piggly Wiggly, attending a family barbecue, or rooting for Heather and Gracelynne at the cheerleading tryouts.

It’s got lots of unintentional humor.

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A Spicer in the Bushes is worth 2 gallows humor jokes.

There is plenty of comedy to be had, though most of it is unintentionally funny (and in some cases, not really funny but horrifying in a “this cannot be real” way, so you have no choice but to laugh because otherwise you’d shoot yourself in the head):  Sean Spicer hiding in the bushes from the media, James Comey (who turns out to be a good guy after starting out early in Season One as a possibly-bad guy) hiding in the navy blue curtains in the Oval Office in his navy blue suit; Trump handing Reince Preibus a flyswatter during an important meeting and ordering him to kill a fly that’s been annoying him;  Trump “I’m a high energy person” riding his golf cart in Brussels while other world leaders walked;  Trump curtsying before the Saudi Arabian king and rubbing a mysterious glowing Orb with the Saudi leaders (what was that all about?); Steve Bannon looking as terrified as if he’s just seen the face of Satan while surrounded by the Saudi elite during the Ceremonial Sword Dance they put on to honor Trump;  the “secret meeting” in the Oval Office with the Russians where no American media was allowed (but Russian media was); the ongoing game of “Nuclear Chicken” Trump and the equally unhinged grinning “Little Rocket Man” keep playing on Twitter; Trump sulking and pouting after having been politely snubbed by the leaders of all our former ally nations because of his tackiness, lack of couth, and complete lack of a moral compass.

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Bannon’s worst nightmare comes true.

Recently, I watched a black comedy called “Idiocracy.”  This administration reminds me of that movie, which although made in 2005, was eerily prescient.  It was also uproariously funny.   If you want to howl until you can’t breathe, watch the “Docter Lexus” scene.  That may be our future.   You have to laugh or you’d never stop crying.    But I digress.

I’m more than ready for this TV series from hell to be cancelled.   Give me the damn blue pill.   I never wanted the red one.

Another possibility.

i-survived-y2k

But did we really?

There’s another explanation for all the weirdness.   Maybe we aren’t actually living in a Matrix simulation or as extras in a TV show from a superalien culture at all.    Maybe it was Y2K.  Maybe it really did happen and we never knew it.  You have to admit, things did start to get weird after 2000.  Maybe when all the computers in the world were set back to “Year One” we never observed that happening because our timeline got crossed with one from a parallel Earth that looks exactly like this one, except that Earth defines reality differently than us captives from the Original Earth do, logic as we know it does not apply, and it’s populated with cartoon villains and lots of other things that seem incongruous, surreal, ludicrous, or impossible to the rest of us.

Maybe TV series and pulp fiction writers have always been able to tap into that other earth’s reality, and now we are all living in it and can see exactly where their ideas came from.  The tell-all book writer Michael Wolff  is able to make sense of it in a way the rest of us rubes from pre-Y2K reality cannot.    He can explain it to us and it starts to make a sort of horrifying sense.  He’s a kind of “rabbit hole whisperer” to the rest of us and that’s why his book is one of the bestselling books of all time.

 

12 reasons why our political situation isn’t as hopeless as you think.

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It’s an uphill battle trying to remain upbeat and positive when your country is being decimated by a group of amoral thugs who seem to have limitless power and money to do whatever they want, especially when no one seems to be able or willing to stop them.    It’s even harder to be positive when you are going to be personally affected by their cruel policies, which have the potential to destroy your life or the lives of your loved ones.

Yes, the situation is bad.   It would be dangerous and foolish to deny that.   But as the old cliche goes, there is always a silver lining to every dark cloud, and in the midst of all the evil, there are reasons to feel hopeful that good will triumph and we may emerge from this  stronger than we have ever been.

Here are 12 reasons why it’s okay to feel hopeful.

1.  Robert Mueller knows what he is doing and who he is dealing with.   In spite of GOP efforts to stop or discredit him, Mueller knows ways to throw a monkey wrench into their efforts, and is tenaciously pursuing justice for us all.  Even if the unthinkable should happen and Trump is able to somehow stop Mueller, I can tell you right now that people aren’t going to just lie down and accept it.    I guarantee half of the country will be storming Washington, jamming the phone lines, and showing up in huge numbers to protest against it.   Besides that, firing Mueller now would leave no doubt of his guilt.  It would be a huge problem for Trump, as it was for Nixon.   I realize it’s not 1974 and government is alot more broken than it was then, but I have to believe that it will still work as it’s supposed to, even if it’s not doing it well.

2.  There are a lot more people who oppose Trump and his administration than there are supporters. And that number is increasing.

3.  Trump’s base is eroding, albeit slowly.  Pew just reported that Trump’s approval rating just sunk to 32%.  That’s the lowest it’s ever been.    Hitler’s approval rating was always much higher, even at the height of his power.

4.  George Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn, and most likely others too, have flipped and are giving Mueller vital inside information that will hasten justice and eventually end this nightmare.

5.  Despite GOP efforts to undermine the free press and honest investigative journalism,  it’s stronger than ever.   Readership of newspapers that stay as close to truthful reporting as they can like The New York Times  and Washington Post have seen record numbers of subscriptions this year and are still rising.   At the same time, Fox News, once the most popular cable news channel, has sunk to third place, behind MSNBC and CNN.  Rachel Maddow’s show is the most popular news show on television.  As long as the free press remains relatively intact, we will not descend into full fascism or totalitarianism.

6.  There is strength in numbers.   There are a lot more of us than there are of them.   Together, we can do a lot of damage. Snowflakes, while fragile and weak on their own, are formidable when they coalesce to form a blizzard.

7.  The Republican Party is self-destructing.  While the Democratic Party may not be in good shape either,  people are leaving the GOP in droves, even people who have voted Republican all their lives.  Among progressives, while there is bickering between Never-Hillary democratic socialists and establishment Democrats, the divisions within various factions of the GOP are much deeper and less likely to mend themselves.

8.  People are more motivated to vote than they have been in decades (conservatives have always voted, so those numbers will not increase).   Don’t forget the recent blue sweep across many states last month, even a red state like Virginia.  Democrat Doug Jones may very well win Alabama, even though that state is deep red and extremely conservative.   He and Moore have been polling very close.   If a state like Alabama can turn blue, that’s a very good sign for us all.

9.  The country is rediscovering its soul and realizing what we have lost under four decades of increasingly right-wing policies.   Trump is both the end result of this and the shadow we have refused to face or denied.   Now we are compelled to face the truth and make necessary changes.   Most of America is finally starting to care about issues that have been increasingly discredited or demonized by Republicans and ignored or dismissed by Democrats.    We are waking up to what’s really important.  In a sense, Trump is actually doing the country a huge service, as long as we do our part and don’t give up and keep resisting.

10.  TIME just gave its Person of the Year award to the women of #MeToo.  Sexual abuse is being exposed and addressed at all levels in a way it never has been before.

11.  History is being made.   If you’re familiar with generational/turning theory, every 80 years or so, the country enters into a Crisis period (the last three were the American Revolution, The Civil War, and The Great Depression/WWII.)  in which America reinvents itself.   America has always come out of these crisis periods stronger and better than it was before.   I have to believe this time is no exception.   This won’t last forever.

12. Related to #10, the Millennial Generation (people born 1982 – 2004) is the most politically progressive generation in modern history.   They can’t be stopped, because there are so many more of them than Gen-X and even Baby Boomers, who are starting to die off.  Most Millennials are politically aware and aren’t allergic to the “s” word.   They realize, like Franklin Delano Roosevelt did, that capitalism works best when seasoned with a good helping of European-style democratic socialism, as it was from the late 1930s to the early 1970s when we had policies that actually benefited We the People and not just the corporations and the wealthy.   Millennials realize that trickle-up economics (recognizing that jobs are created and the economy thrives when the “little people” are living better), works better than trickle down economics, which has never worked for most Americans.   This is the generation that is beginning to have its effects felt in government and politics and is only going to keep increasing.

Trump’s personality disorder brings out the worst in everyone.

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I think it’s pretty safe to say Donald Trump has a very malignant case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and appears to fit all of its psychiatric criteria.    Unfortunately, he’s only the tip of the iceberg, merely a symptom of America’s soul-sickness.

Trump has surrounded himself with a staff of other Dark Triad or Cluster B personality-disordered types.   Congress and the Senate are also populated by people who appear to have no conscience or empathy, and only feel entitled to take from others to enrich themselves.    Many of them appear to have antisocial or psychopathic personalities.

Narcissists like Trump become codependent and simpering in the hands of psychopaths, because of their emotional neediness.   Vladimir Putin appears to using him to achieve his own nefarious ends of world domination or at least the destruction of western democracy. Trump, being a narcissist and therefore far more emotionally fragile than Putin, doesn’t realize he’s only being used and exploited.

I could go for pages speculating about the psychology of Trump, his enablers, and those who are using him for their own ends (and many have), and I feel pretty confident saying that almost his entire administration is made up of sociopathic and codependent types, the latter of which have mostly already left or been fired (Reince Preibus and Sean Spicer seemed more codependent to me than personality-disordered themselves).

I don’t see any obvious Borderlines in the Trump administration, although Trump himself appears to have a few Borderline or Histrionic traits.    As far as I can tell, Trump is the only obvious case of NPD.   The rest seem more like people with ASPD or psychopathy to me, seemingly emotionless and willing to use and enable Trump for their own ends.

How Trump brings out the worst in everyone.

Authoritarianism and racism are highly correlated with antisocial and narcissistic personalities, and we saw the worst of society become violent at the KKK rally and protest in Charlottesville, Virginia today.    The undercurrent of hatred in this country runs deep, and our election of a black president in 2008 and 2012 did nothing to quell it — if anything, the hatred and racism that were always lurking beneath the surface became even deeper and more toxic than at any time since the Jim Crow days.

America is a sick country and only a sick country would elect a malignant narcissist for its president and psychopathic or antisocial people for high political positions.    Trump isn’t the problem, since the problem would still be there whether or not he was president.   He is the ugly symptom, and is now bringing all the darkness out in the open.   We are finally seeing how deep this cancer runs and hoping against hope it hasn’t reached Stage Four.

In some ways this is a good thing, since now we can see exactly how sick our nation has become and how deep and dark the divisions between us really are.   But Trump also has a way of bringing out the worst traits in everyone he comes in contact with, even indirectly — in his administration, in his supporters, in his enemies, and in his opponents.  Even though I’ve never met the man, whenever he’s on TV I feel as if all the oxygen has been sucked out the room.  He’s everywhere.  You can’t get away from him.

Trump enables his cabinet members and sycophants in their lack of empathy, lack of conscience, and crass greed and selfishness.  They use him for their own ends and they know he will never call them out if they just keep on flattering him and giving him the praise he wants.

Trump brings out the worst in his staff.   He causes drama and chaos whenever his bottomless need for admiration and approval isn’t met — he will attack, devalue or discard whoever he believes isn’t giving him the approval he craves, even those who could benefit him.     He always has a scapegoat, always — even among those who have been loyal to him, like Mitch McConnell or Jeff Sessions.   Never in my life have I seen a White House so filled with drama and discord.   Even the Nixon administration at the height of Watergate seemed like a sanctuary of sanity in comparison.  Trump brings out the very worst in his staff, while anyone with a semblance of a conscience or a soul left has already resigned or been fired.

Trump brings out the worst in his supporters.  He enables them to display their authoritarianism, racism, hatred, and ignorance — even to the point of violence, as we see happening today in Charlottesville.   On social media, the rhetoric of his supporters has become increasingly hate-filled and ugly, to the point of threatening non-supporters with terrorism and even civil war against them.    Trump appears complicit in all this, and acts  as if it isn’t happening.

Trump brings out the worst in his non-supporters.   Many people are suffering from PTSD or even C-PTSD that has been retriggered by his constant gaslighting, projection, threats,  need for revenge, and denial of the truth.   Depression, despair, feelings of dissociation and unreality, and dread are problems for many Americans right now, and therapists even have a name for it:  Trump Traumatic Stress Disorder (TTSD).   Anger is also being triggered in his non-supporters, though not in quite the same way as in his supporters.   Righteous anger differs from hatred, and it may be the only good thing he’s bringing about.   He’s forcing his opponents to expose the truth about what has happened in our country over the past few decades and demanding that we change course — drastically, if necessary.

I was involved in a discussion on Twitter about Trump’s fragile ego, and we agreed that he seems to be a collapsed narcissist, who knows it’s only a matter of time before the whole house of cards comes toppling down and he’s exposed, even to many of his supporters, as the criminal and fraud he really is.   As he grows more desperate, he increases the volume on his endless demands for admiration and approval, holding more hatred-enabling rallies and even threatening nuclear war over a perceived insult from North Korea’s equally unhinged leader.   That’s how bottomless Trump’s emotional void is:  that he would be willing to send millions of people to their deaths — even the entire planet — just to save his fragile ego.  It doesn’t help that many far-right religious leaders are stroking his ego even more by telling him he’s been anointed by God.

We can never begin to think of what he’s doing is normal, because it’s anything but.

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That’s the sound of your soul being sucked into oblivion. 

****

Further reading:

The Soul-Sucking, Attention-Eating Black Hole of the Trump Presidency.

Our Nation Suffers From C-PTSD

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I found two articles that I think many of you will find helpful and informative.  I know I did!    I completely agree with the author that our nation’s most vulnerable — immigrants, the poor, women, the old, the disabled, people of color, gay and transgender people, etc. — are being gaslighted and smeared by this administration so that WE are the monsters, while the real monsters paint themselves as the victims.   This is a common manipulation tactic used by sociopaths called DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse the roles of Victim and Offender).

We have never had a president like Donald Trump before.   This is NOT politics as usual, nor is it normal.  You have every right to feel the way you do.  You are not crazy.

What other administration acted the way these people do?   What other president was hell-bent on destroying the truth? What other president waged a Twitter war against his predecessor and others who disagree with him?   What other president was so obsessed with the number of people who voted for him or who showed up at his inauguration?   What other president was so destructive,  hell-bent on tearing down any and all agencies and programs that benefit and protect the everyday people, our environment, and democracy itself?  What other president admired dictators and authoritarian regimes, and thumbed his nose at other western democracies as being “weak”? What other president used scare tactics and hatred to divide and conquer, the way Trump does at his rallies and on Twitter?  Most politicians have more than average levels of narcissism, or they wouldn’t survive long in their jobs (or even be attracted to politics as a profession).    But I think, in most cases, they had healthy narcissism, not the sort of malignant narcissism Donald Trump clearly suffers from.  Nor do they surround themselves with equally sociopathic, destructive personalities.

It hit me how truly monstrous these sociopaths were when I saw this picture of them laughing after their “healthcare bill” that would toss 23 million people off healthcare passed the House back in May.

&lt;&gt; on January 7, 2016 in Washington, DC.

Until, then, like anyone who’s being abused, I wanted to believe they somehow had our best interests at heart.

They don’t.   They have no conscience and no empathy.   They are entitled and think they are above the law.    They use toxic religion to manipulate and scare the religious into submission and to shame the vulnerable.  Their intention is to destroy us and all that we hold dear.   That is no exaggeration or crazy conspiracy theory (as they want us to think), and he is riling up his flying monkeys at his rallies.   Most Trump supporters have authoritarian personalities, and authoritarianism is highly correlated with narcissism and antisocial behavior.

Even Republicans are abandoning their own party because of what it’s become.  They aren’t a political party anymore.  They are a cult.  They show all the signs of being a cult, and Trump’s followers act like cult members.

Many people are being traumatized by Trump and his policies.  Even his own staff are being abused and manipulated.   Most of those who still have a conscience have already fled the White House or been fired (it’s my opinion that Sean Spicer was being traumatized and spiritually destroyed by his job).

I think those of us who endured narcissistic abuse have a special advantage because we recognize exactly what we are now faced with.  We can and should call them out on their BS.    I think we have a responsibility to fight against this darkness and our own abuse prepared us for this.  And I believe that in the end, justice and truth will win.   It always does.

It would be nice if we could go No Contact with our country, but for most of us, that isn’t a possibility.   It’s not all hopeless though.   We can fight back and resist, but we also need to take care of ourselves. The author of the C-PTSD article also wrote a post about how to survive what’s been dubbed Trump Trauma.  Even therapists regard it as a real malady and are seeing a spike in their patient rolls since January.

Our Nation Suffers From C-PTSD

A Practical Guide to Surviving Trump

Partisan politics? Or right vs. wrong?

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Before this blog changed its focus, a few times I said that religion and politics were subjects I wanted to avoid.  I was afraid of putting people off who may not agree with my political and religious beliefs.    It’s ironic that now those two things seem to have become my main focus.

I feel called to write about them now because they are both so intertwined and both have been corrupted by unbridled greed and narcissism.   This isn’t just partisan politics as usual.  It’s not liberal vs. conservative.  It’s not about transgender bathrooms or gay marriage or whether abortion should be federally funded or not.

We’re not in the same world anymore, when people could fight over whether George W. Bush or Barack Obama was the better president or had the better policies.   Both men, in my opinion, were at heart moral men.  Both made mistakes, sometimes big ones.  Neither were perfect.  Neither were bad people and neither deliberately tried to destroy our country.   You might have preferred one over the other based on your political or religious leanings, and you would have had good reasons for feeling the way you did either way (even if I didn’t agree with your reasons).

But we’re no longer in that universe.   Things are not normal.  This isn’t politics as usual.  Trump is not a normal president and he is not a good or moral man.  Neither are the people who are working for him.  Say what you want about Hillary Clinton (and I wasn’t a huge fan myself), but there is no way any rational person could think that Trump is the better person.   I’ll just leave it at that because I know how polarizing Ms. Clinton is.

When you have a president who is actively trying to tear down democracy  itself,  who appears to be dead set on harming or killing tens of millions of people by dismantling their safety nets, who wants to build a wall against our ally to the south, who threatens to take away Medicare and Medicaid, who denies that our climate is changing and denies science itself, who intends to destroy the laws that protect our environment, who writes up a budget that de-fund any programs that improve the quality of our lives, who gaslights anyone who disagrees with him or disapproves of his policies, who lies on a daily basis, who refuses to release his tax returns, who is pathologically envious of his predecessor and started a smear campaign against him (the “birther” lies),  who fires an honest FBI agent for investigating possible collusion with a hostile foreign power, who has shady business dealings (possibly with a hostile foreign power), who hires family members  (who also have shady business dealings) with no experience for cabinet positions, who is isolating us from our allies (the same way narcissists will try to isolate you from your support systems), who chooses people for cabinet positions for the sole purpose of destroying the very things their departments are supposed to protect, who is vindictive, who threatens, who bullies and calls other people abusive names, who mocks the disabled, who brags about grabbing women’s private parts, who shows no empathy toward anyone, who tweets constantly about how badly he is treated, who never apologizes or admits wrongdoing, who calls any news he doesn’t like fake, who encourages violence and hatred and racism at his rallies, who admits he doesn’t even need God’s forgiveness  — well, then we are no longer talking about partisan politics as usual.  We are talking about right versus wrong, good versus evil.

I have a background in narcissistic abuse as the survivor of narcissists and sociopaths, and now I can see clear as day the massive narcissistic abuse occurring on the national level with this president and his cold-hearted cabinet members who care only about money and power, and gleefully celebrate the prospect of taking healthcare away from millions of people.

So I feel like I’ve been called to shed light on the truth and help expose the lies and abuse and corruption in this presidency.    I feel like I’ve been called to speak up for those who have no power and no voice.   No, I’m not special or any different from anyone else; many other people have also recognized this need and are doing the same thing I am.   I feel like if I wasn’t doing this, I would be failing in what I know I’ve been called to do.

It’s exhausting, and some days I just can’t deal with it.   Some days I feel so depressed over all this I just want to lie down and never wake up.   Some days I feel so filled with despair, scared, and helpless — much the same way I felt as a little child in a narcissistic family.   Some days I’ve actually cried about it.  (Go ahead and call me a snowflake).

I’ve been on a blogging roll the past few days, but I think the occasional hopelessness and terror that overcomes me is what has been keeping me from posting for days at a time. This work is exhausting and saps your energy.   Sometimes I just need a break from it to stay sane.

When I wrote about my own abuse situation, I was already No Contact with my narcissists.  It was easier to write every day about it because I wasn’t in the midst of it anymore.   It was easier to process from a distance.   It was cathartic and therapeutic to spill out everything here on my blog.

But now, I feel like I’m back in the midst of the abuse, only in an abusive situation that’s so much bigger and more dangerous than the other ones, and sometimes I feel incredibly tiny and helpless.  Sometimes I feel like there’s nothing I can do at all, like there’s nothing anyone can do.  Sometimes I feel like I’m on the Titanic and I know it’s going to sink and I know I won’t get a lifeboat and there’s not a damn thing I can do except hope and pray for a miracle.

At the same time, I know that giving into despair and helplessness or fear won’t help me or anyone.  Giving in and giving up means THEY win.

We cannot allow the bullies and abusers to win.   We have to fight back. We can’t throw our hands up and say, “oh, well, there’s nothing I or anyone can do.  The situation is hopeless.”

We may be weak and scared but there are more of us than them.   A lot more.

I know I’ve been prepared for many years  for the work I have to do now, and writing about the spiritual war going on in this country right now (I do believe it is a spiritual war) and exposing the abuse and the lies is something I feel compelled to do, even though it’s not fun and is sometimes personally triggering.

For some reason I don’t understand, I have a sinking feeling about the healthcare bill vote tomorrow.  Mitch McConnell and the rest of the greedy sociopaths trying to take away the safety net of millions of Americans are relentless and merciless.   They don’t care about us.  They don’t care how much we protest and plead.   They turn a deaf ear to the tragic stories so many people tell them.

They just don’t stop, no matter how many times their heartless bill fails to pass.  They are dead set on getting their lousy tax break, no matter how many people they hurt and how insane and panic-stricken they are making so many thousands, if not millions, of people feel.   It is truly crazymaking, the way they keep trying to ram it through over and over and over.   You can’t ever relax, you’re constantly on guard, constantly worried and panicked. I wish they would just drop it already. I wish they would engage Democrats and work together to try to improve the ACA instead (or come up with something that really is better), but nope, they want things their way.   They want their damned tax breaks.  They refuse to compromise.

I feel like it’s going to pass this time, and I’m scared, along with millions of others.

But there is something you can do.  It’s not fun and it’s tedious and annoying and time consuming.   We shouldn’t HAVE to be doing this.  It makes me angry that we do.  In no civilized society should we have to fight for our basic rights and even for our lives.   But if you care about saving the Affordable Care Act, you won’t care how tedious or boring or infuriating this task is.

I am asking you to call these people sometime in the next 24 hours, preferably tonight or tomorrow morning.    Please tell them to vote No on the Republican health care bill.

We can’t let them win on this.  It’s immoral and it’s cruel.   It’s not about partisan politics, it’s about lives.  It’s about your children and mine.  It’s about the disabled, the working poor, familes with children, your grandparents, your parents, your sister, your brother, your friends and your neighbors.    It’s about you if you aren’t wealthy or if you are older or have a pre-existing condition.   Even if you have insurance through the place you work, under this bill, employers would no longer be obligated to offer you insurance.  So don’t think you’re not in danger too.

Everyone will get sick.  No matter how healthy you are now, at some point you won’t be.  Even if you never get in an accident or develop a disease like cancer, you will grow old one day and need affordable healthcare.  Unless you are wealthy, under this bill you may be left with no safety net when that happens.

There’s no excuse for this bill that punishes people for being vulnerable, other than greed and possibly, a group of evil people who actually want to see “the takers” and “nonproducers” (anyone who isn’t just like them) suffer and die.

So please make these calls.  I am going to now.

saveaca