Trump Fatigue

Fewer people are reading my blog these days.  And I am signing fewer online petitions, and sending more political appeals to trash without opening them.  After all, how many $3 donations can one person make?

We have been overwhelmed since the day Donald Trump paid people to watch him ride down an escalator and begin to spew his bigotry and ignorance with an aim to becoming president.  We laughed at his ignorance, but we were also appalled, and like a car crash, the media couldn't stop filming and we couldn't take our eyes off him.

I can't watch him speak anymore.  I now assume it is totally unnecessary and a waste of whatever hours I have left of my life.  I safely assume that there will be far too much coverage of what he says, hours and hours of rerunning the same quotes and then analyzing those bon mots -- whose thoughts David Brooks has notably said amount to "six fireflies beeping randomly in a jar."  It is beyond disturbing that overnight we went from a president of strong values and intelligence as well as a great orator to a president with no moral compass, who is unable to face the nation without a teleprompter, whose words can be so obviously categorized as being ghost written or spewing from his own small and petty mind.  A president who chooses to communicate with the world through the safety of 140 characters.  A president who for-gods-sake "tweets."

His stupid phrases echo throughout our lives.  He faces world leaders who are intelligent and thoughtful with the same inane compliments, and shouts the same lame and angry promises -- and threats -- at his rallies.  A president who lives for his rallies, because his staunch supporters haven't noticed that it is not Mexico that will pay for his wall, but they themselves.

I was happy to hear that he is using the funds from his 2020 campaign to pay for his lawyers, lawyers who appear to be as stupid as he is, or maybe are just taking his money while not putting a lot of energy into a losing battle.  On the other hand, we seem to have tired of getting angry at the theft of America by the Trump family business; for the moment we are shocked that his cabinet members are following his lead by literally and figuratively flying first class on America's dime.  Eventually there will be a new horror uncovered and the excesses will continue.  Meanwhile, the ironically named "Department of Justice" and the excitable Attorney General Jefferson Sessions goes about the business of dismantling our individual rights.  Too many distractions, 24/7.

And then there is Congress.  We are tired of having to yell at republicans for their slimy attempts to placate their wealthy donors with bills that will take away the safety nets of most Americans.  They keep saying that their truly ugly bills to repeal Obamacare are really a need to fill campaign promises; what has become clear is that those promises were to their wealthy donors who are threatening to throw them out of office if they don't repeal.  Which explains why town halls and ground level approval ratings have been ignored.

And I am exhausted whenever I hear a Democrat or someone in the media refer to the latest planned heist as "tax reform."  There is nothing reformative about tearing down our social institutions in order to add more billions to the billionaire class.  Maybe we need to put David Brooks on the job to find a more fitting phrase, one that would alert Americans to what is really behind the tax cut plan that has Mick Mulvaney and Paul Ryan salivating.

I worry that we are so tired of fighting this unfair fight that we have turned back to the day-to-day things that really matter:  our families and our homes.  We made time to march, and to call out legislators at town halls, but we have jobs to go to.  And this is what Paul Ryan and Lindsey Graham count on.  This is why they continue to try to pass the noxious bill that would destroy health care for millions.  Donald Trump is not a brilliant thinker, but he has wealth and a lifetime of being a successful con artist.  He knows that government can be manipulated, and he has a cabinet that has spent their careers doing it with great success.

Will we be able to bring forth the energy and outrage we had in January to fill our statehouses and Congress with people who represent us and not the wealthy and powerful?  Will we be able to spread the word to those who barely have time to care for their children and get to work on time?  Will we get out to vote and be able to convince those even more exhausted than we are to do the same?

I call it PTTD:  Post Traumatic Trump Disorder.  The trauma was the election, but the effects are the aftershocks that never stop.  Trump fatigue, Trump anxiety.  We feel discouraged; we don't believe we can win against the tsunami of hate and corruption.

But we have won an amazing number of victories.  We have won local elections across the country in once red districts.  We have stopped, and stopped again, the repeal of Obamacare.  We have turned the tide on the repeal of DACA and the Muslim ban.  We have, by our numbers of peaceful counter-protesters, halted the march of the white supremacists.

We are allowed our exhaustion.  We need our time with our families and we need our time to laugh as well as to cry.  We need to keep talking to each other.

We can't make all the phone calls or fight all the battles, but when we feel that spark of outrage we can use it to fight, and we can support those who are fighting other battles.  If we do this, we can reach inside and find the energy to drain the swamp -- no, the sewer -- that Donald Trump has brought to our government.  More important, we can clean out the Congress that since the election of Barack Obama has eroded the integrity of the legislature and the trust of the American people.  It took a dirty Congress to create the atmosphere that spewed forth a Donald Trump, but we the people can clean it out.  We have done it before.

Yes, our country has survived ugly times before.  We will do it again.  I believe that Trump fatigue is a treatable disease.

George W. Bush didn't last forever.  Even Hitler didn't last forever.  And our democracy is strong, with millions fighting all in our own way.  When we come back from this, we will come back stronger still.