Donald Trump and the movement he represents are not “just” a matter of politics: They are effectively a public health crisis that touches all areas of American society and life.
These assaults on democracy and a humane society are emotional, physical, spiritual, psychological, economic, intellectual and material. Trumpism and fascism attack reality and truth, seeking to replace them with what social psychologists have described as a state of “malignant normality."
The result of these assaults is a collective state of trauma, anxiety, lack of direction and growing despair about our futures as individuals and citizens of a supposed democracy. These negative emotions are amplified by existential fears about global climate disaster, disruptive technologies such as AI, wars in multiple areas of the world, past and future pandemics and other unpredictable crises.
Fascism and authoritarianism are like opportunistic predators. They seek out societies in crisis whose dysfunction and brokenness allow them to flourish.
If Trump and his MAGA forces take back the White House, whether by fair means or foul — a once-unthinkable prospect that now seems increasingly likely — that might finally mean the end of innocence for those Americans who have deluded themselves into believing that “we are better than that."
True. Our founders thought norms would be followed by good faith presidents. Trump tested those.
Trump has done so many awful things in the four years he was president. He has learned from it. He knows he needs more loyalist in position to kill our democracy. Hope he doesn’t get a chance to do it.
I am old and lived most of my life in a democracy, but I am sure the young people don’t want to live in an authority Christian Nation. I hope they vote.
I have a 1,000 things to say, and I won’t call the election for Biden, but Trump cannot win supporters, only lose.
Our republic depends on us voting. It ain’t much to ask vs. the bloodshed that would follow a Trump win.
And if anyone thinks that hyperbolic, shortly after Biden took office we had 1,000,000 dead Americans from COVID. And he just called me “vermin”.