Reducing Anxiety so We Can Live Through the Next Few Days. Final Thoughts: In an Autocracy, We as Citizens, Consumers, Patients, and Workers Lose Our Rights

First, a personal concern:

How do we reduce the anxiety most of us are feeling about the election to something we can live with? DT has done all he can to make this difficult. He has worked to make the election as chaotic and threatening as possible. He’s done all he could to try to fix or hold up election results and frighten election workers. He’s promised if he wins to rule like a dictator, use the military against those who oppose him, and violence if he loses. He has falsely claimed for years that the 2020 election was rigged, and now he claims this one’s been rigged, so whether he loses, or wins, we won’t know who our next president will be for hours, days or weeks after Tuesday. But the evidence shows that the only candidate in the 2024 race who’s tried to illegally interfere in the election process is DT himself.

 

I’m tired of him. I want him to just lose, again, but this time, disappear from the political stage. I’m trying different strategies to keep my eyes open while keeping my heart rate as comfortable as I can. One strategy is to do whatever and as much as I can to get out the vote, or as Michelle Obama said, to do something.

 

I’m also considering my own health, mental and physical. One way I’m doing that is to study how, in the worst of times, maybe we can get stronger. In the midst of my fright, maybe there’s buried the way to face what frightens me. In a book about the Japanese Zen teacher and philosopher Dogen Zenji by Shinshu Roberts, the author quotes Dogen and other teachers on facing what we don’t like. The mental states that we wish would just disappear, he says, might just reveal the wisdom that we need. We don’t find wisdom in a vacuum. There are things we must put off; it’s difficult to talk about wisdom when our mind is focused on survival. Yet our lives are so much better when we can bring as much awareness as possible to whatever we face.

 

Maybe if we can just stop what we’re doing, and sit, stand, exercise, or take a walk in a beautiful area; maybe take a breath. Feel our feet on the floor. For one minute we can take a holiday and feel this moment, now, so fully we won’t have the space to imagine later. Maybe when it’s possible and with as much awareness as possible, we can write down or dance out the thoughts in our mind or the feelings in our body, without editing or hiding them. Then we will better perceive how to face the next moment, no matter what occurs. And, if we haven’t done so already, we can be relaxed yet alert when we vote.

 

A last argument before the election:

A week before election day, Kamala Harris gave a powerful final argument for her campaign. She said we all know who DT is and what he’d delver, more chaos, hate, and division. More power and wealth to the rich at the expense of the rest of us. For example, his 10-50% tariff on imported goods would raise the burden on most of us hundreds to  thousands of dollars while proportionally reducing the burden on the rich. Many economists warn his plans could crash the economy.

 

But what needs to be said more clearly is that the economy and the cost of living is not a separate issue from that of democracy….

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

Just Listen to What He Says. Listen: Many Report on the Drip of Normalcy and Neglect the Flood of Offensive Nonsense

If we doubt that much of the corporate media is helping DT with the way they cover him, just listen to what he actually says. We just need to listen, carefully, if we can stand it.

 

Even I, when I read the text of his statements, find myself normalizing him. I read or listen and look for a drop of normalcy, or for how his followers would hear him. I subconsciously do the work he wouldn’t do and look for meaning or critical thinking amidst all the gibberish, and then dismiss the gibberish. But right there on the page, right there on the screen where he stands, his words are often nonsense, and offensive, frightening nonsense.

 

The major reason he’s still in this race, and not being laughed off the stage, is because so many of those who support him are locked behind a wall of disinformation or bias and fictionalize him, and those who report on him are either afraid of him and told to normalize him by corporate higher-ups, or are inured to his weirdness and self-absorption. Many see the drip of normalcy and neglect the flood of incoherent, belligerent, and offensive inanity. We must not allow ourselves to get so used to him to the point that he uses us.

 

The recent debate provided a good example of his belligerent inanity. I almost felt sorry for him a couple of times because he was so out of his depth, so lost and out of control. He had no facts to show he cared about issues and people, and often pushed beyond the debate agreements of 2 minute comments to aggressively ramble on with conspiratorial lies.

 

And the simplistic, malignant nature of these lies almost surprised me. I didn’t expect him to so blatantly repeat on national tv the weird crazies he repeats on smaller stages. For example, his old debunked refrain about millions coming across the border to steal and rape, even repeating racist disinformation about Haitians stealing pets to eat them. He ignored the fact that most Haitians in the city were here legally, and immigrants in general are less likely to commit crimes then other U. S. residents, certainly less likely than DT himself.

 

“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats,” said Trump. The police and other city officials have repeatedly said there were no such reports, but DT claimed it was true because he saw it somewhere on tv.

 

Of course, when asked directly at the debate if he wanted the Ukrainians to win the war to defeat Russian invaders, or if he would veto a national abortion ban, he showed his true values and that, maybe his ramblings serve a purpose all his own, and refused to answer the actual question asked.

 

Recently, at a Fox “News” town hall, he was asked about the mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia that led to four deaths and multiple injuries. DT avoided the question to talk about the support he received from Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán, the same autocrat he mentioned at the debate as a foreign ruler who respects him.

 

“’It’s a sick and angry world for a lot of reasons…’ Trump said. ‘And we’re going to make it better, you know, Viktor Orban made a statement, he said, ‘bring Trump back and we won’t have any problems.’ He was very strong about that.’” Never a comment about gun safety, or a sliver of compassion for the victims and their families….

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

Preserve the Constitutional and Peaceful Transition of Power

Now that DT has lost the election, I⎼ and so many others⎼ would like to just ignore him and starve his malignant narcissism of attention. Ever since 2016, there was always the desire to just turn him off. And this is the best time to do so. Last Saturday and Sunday the headlines were filled with faces other than his, of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris—and Stacey Abrams.

 

We wish we could just turn him off, but we can’t. He won’t let go or concede. He is so desperate; he could put our whole nation at risk. DT and his GOP followers are blatantly working to undermine the heart of the U.S. constitution, by grasping at the power to keep himself in office. At a news conference, DT’s Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo called for “a smooth transition to a second Trump administration.” At the very least, DT aims to seize the headlines, and whine “I am the victim, here. I have been defrauded once again.” He has committed so many frauds, corrupt acts and crimes, so many malignant actions, they must fill his mind so entirely he sees them everywhere.

 

Despite no evidence whatsoever of there being any voter fraud, a fact proclaimed by his own Federal Election Officials, DT continues with his inconsistent and false claims. For the past week, his legal team has been suing several states, at first to stop vote counting, then to dismiss or invalidate the results. He has demanded recounts, for example, in Wisconsin and Georgia. His suits have mostly been thrown out, because they have no evidence to support their claims. He made similar false claims after the 2016 election, when he proclaimed, also without any evidence, that he would have won the popular vote if “millions of people” hadn’t been allowed to vote illegally, a fact his own commission proved false.  Why stop lying now?

 

So, if anyone has interfered in the legal voting, it was DT and the GOP. He called the Governor of Arizona last week, and Rupert Murdoch who owns FOX News, to complain about news that Biden was ahead in the count and that Fox had called the state for Biden. DT supporters tried to interfere or pressure the vote count in several locations, including Arizona, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Watching the scene in Maricopa County, Arizona, I couldn’t help but flash back to the scene in Florida, during the 2000 election, and the GOP supporters flown in to interfere in the counting of ballots.

 

DT started interfering in the election months ago, falsely claiming mail-in ballots were fraudulent, stopping states from sending them out, and stopping the USPS from delivering them. In California, the GOP put up fake drop-in boxes. And let’s not forget efforts to confuse or disenfranchise voters.

 

His appointee, Emily Murphy, head of the General Services Administration, has so far failed to recognize Biden’s win and release the funds and other resources so Biden can officially begin the peaceful transition of power.

 

Peaceful⎼ for Murphy to hold up the transition, she pushes the election into a chaotic situation that encourages anger, distress, fear and outrage, the emotional feeding ground for violence. The nation has been on edge for months, or 4 years, and this additional stress on our political system just further undermines the safety of this nation.

 

Meanwhile, DT is firing government officials, anyone who has ever said “no’ to him that still has a government post⎼ a move that could make the situation in the U. S. even more volatile. For example, he fired Mark Esper, Secretary of Defense, who opposed DT’s desire to send active-duty troops to quell street protests in Portland and other cities. DT fired other officials in the Defense Department and there is evidence he plans to also fire Christopher Wray, the F. B. I. Director, and maybe Gina Haspel, the C. I. A Director.

 

And while Covid-19 cases and deaths continue to mount (yesterday 145,000 new cases, the highest single day total since the pandemic began), DT continues to lie, to fail in protecting, or caring for the health and lives of the people of this nation. He will leave the new administration with the worst health crisis this nation has faced in over a hundred years, one he did little to contain.

 

And when Biden finally succeeds in entering the White House and being inaugurated, who would be surprised if DT tries to pressure the GOP into resurrecting the “party of NO” and interfering in every government function they can interfere in? Especially if the GOP hold on to a Senate majority, they can refuse to confirm cabinet nominees as well as judgeships and hold up the filling of other vacant positions. This could force the Biden administration to be more “centrist” in order to get anyone confirmed and make it extremely difficult for Biden and Democrats to actually do anything positive for us, the American people.

 

DT fears Biden showing voters that a Democratic (or democratic) government can improve the everyday lives of Americans. He wants to continue to divide the Democratic party as he has the nation and make anger and fear stain Biden as it stains him.

 

We would all like to take a breath, and we need to do that. The last few weeks have been exhausting. Let’s give ourselves a needed break, clear our minds, assess information⎼ and act effectively. We can make calls, write postcards and get out the vote for the two Senate positions up for grabs on January 4th in the run-off elections in Georgia. If Democrats win both these seats, the Senate will be evenly divided between parties.

 

Eight GOP Senators and six House members have already broken with DT⎼ let’s energize a movement. Make calls and protest to get more of the GOP to actually honor their oaths and protect the constitutional and peaceful transition of power.

 

And we need to both support and pressure President-elect Biden to issue executive orders as well as push legislation that will foster justice, economic security, and caring for the health and well-being of Americans⎼ good health care for all and a scientifically based response to the coronavirus pandemic and the climate emergency. Then maybe student debt relief, protecting voting rights, releasing immigrant children from DT’s cages and re-uniting them with their parents. Who knows where we can go from there? We can do this, just as we won this election.