Clipped at the knees by Sue Robin

Sometimes I feel like I am tuned into the same virtual channel as others who write for this blog. Today, Sue articulates so clearly many things that I am feeling. I know about the efforts at self-calming and the drops into the abyss. Those of us who write relieve some of the stress we’re carrying in our hearts and bodies by putting words on a page. I trust they make a difference to those who read them as well.

A New Coronavirus Adviser Roils the White House With Unorthodox Ideas—The New York Times

Bill Barr Dodges When Confronted on Trump Encouraging Supporters to Illegally Vote Twice: ‘I Don’t Know’ What State Law Says—Mediaite

US debt will overtake GDP next year for the first time since 1946, CBO says—CNN

September 2, 2020

Clipped at the knees
by Sue Robin, Los Angeles, California

Anger has clipped me at the knees. I swing from the calm and comfort of the Biden/Harris convention to the depths of hell with the incumbent idiot. My rage seems to have no bounds and I swing between, “How can he promulgate these absurd theories about COVID-19?” to, “OMG! What a racist anti-Semitic inhumane jerk.”

Trump’s latest pick to advise him on the COVID-19 crisis, Scott Atlas, is not an epidemiologist nor an infectious disease control specialist, but a radiologist. He was hired to promote the theories that Trump thinks will best suit his re-election campaign. This doctor does not think masks are helpful, all in the face of countless experts who are dismayed and annoyed that they are again and again having to fight for science and our health in this country. In addition, Dr. Atlas believes in the herd immunity concept. You have heard of it I am sure. It was what was attempted in Sweden and failed miserably. Trump has also spouted the notion that only 9,000 died from COVID-19 and the 173,000 additional deaths are because they had other conditions and really died from those illnesses. Those repeatedly debunked theories just so happen to coincide with Trump’s wish to dismiss the pandemic with, “It is what it is.”

I do work hard at self-calming. Honest to God. The daily three-mile walks, thirty minutes of yoga and twenty flights of stairs help take the edge off a bit, but only a bit. Drawing, reading and writing help, too. There are the two hundred letters I have prepared to send to registered voters to encourage their participation which gives me a sense of purpose and something concrete to do. The letters were to be mailed sometime late in October, though because of the Post Office craziness will be mailed sooner. Uh-oh. The removal of drop boxes and mail sorters and the staff reductions.

Oh no, here I go again. Into the abyss. In the darkness and depths of this hole, I watch my anger rise, my anxiety envelope me and, though the polls all show VP Biden ahead, I begin to imagine four more years of Trump Hell. The what ifs slip into my brain. I wonder what ‘email dump’-like event Trump and Wikileaks have planned for this election?

We have watched as his minions have brought violence and chaos to the already existing pain as people protest the unwarranted, unconscionable killings by police. What will Trump’s henchmen do if Biden does win? Another civil war? I do not think Democracy, the United States of America nor I will survive that. Please vote. Please encourage everyone you know to participate. Please pray for sanity, kindness and justice to prevail.