Every time I enter a doctor’s office these days for anything (wellness check, transgender diagnosis, etc.)  I get a piece (or two) of paper inquiring into the status of my mental health.

 

The questions include, “How many times this week have you felt depressed or anxious?” “On a scale of one to ten, how hopeful are you that the future will be better than the present?” “Have you considered suicide in the past year?” “Do usually pleasurable activities leave you feeling neutral, sad, or angry?”

 

I just shake my head…

 

If I answered these questions honestly, they’d probably commit me to psychiatric evaluation. So I answer them honestly anyway. I write, “Except for the havoc Trump is wreaking on my country and this planet, I’m doing just fine, thank you.”

 

When I do this, I always (without exception) get a knowing nod, a curt smile, and the response, “You’re not alone” or “You’re far from alone.”

 

Perhaps what’s even worse (although not as devastating on a planetary scale) was to discover the number of people I love who feel giddy and delighted that Trump is the in the Oval Office and has nearly every one of the GOP reps by the short hairs. They seem to be enjoying the fact that Trump’s policies have stuck it to the “libtards” and “snowflakes.”

 

What’s even worse is that no amount of facts to the contrary (“Fox lies to you 52% to 56% of the time and the scariest stuff they tell you is malarkey” “Obama is not a Muslim,” “People coming to our southern border are refugees escaping almost-certain death, not rapists and murderers” “refugee children should not be separated from their parents and confined in cages or sold off by Betty DeVos’ child adoption agency” “Climate change is an existential threat” etc., etc. etc.) will ever darken their door or enter their thought processes because they refuse to watch or read anything other than crap that confirms their bigotries and biases.

 

I don’t know how the nation can survive such committed, stubborn ignorance. (See my earlier post on the difference between ignorance and stupidity, “The Only Thing I HATE is Orchestrated FEAR”)   They seem happy to let the nation and the planet go down the drain rather than take the time to check out their sources and reach the conclusion that they’ve been lied to for so long that they’ve become a cult, a willing dispenser of wild conspiracy theories and Nazi-like adherence to their Fuhrer.  Trump is their golden calf. They’ve taken their eyes off the historical Jesus and replaced him with the ridiculous notion that God sent Trump to bring about the End Times so they can rapture out of here, leaving us Left Behind-ers to thrash and gnash and rue the day that we didn’t drink their kool-aid.

 

Anyway, I would think that  if people loved their family members, they’d be willing to walk with them a while to see if we have some additional information that might dispel the crazy notion that Trump and the GOP give a damn about anything but themselves. The GOP is on course to cut Social Security and Medicare and gut food stamps so their crony capitalists can have more money at the top. They don’t want the government serving US; they want socialism for the wealthy (all the money goes into their already-burgeoning pockets so they can buy more elections and influence, until the average  American has no influence at all) and “up-by-the-bootstraps rugged individualism” for everyone else.

 

So I’d say we should feel anxious and depressed, and we shouldn’t medicate or meditate it away. We should be doing everything we can every day to turn this dystopian nightmare around.

 

People who are enjoying Trump’s ascendancy will rue the day, but they can’t see that now. Until their benefits are cut or their jobs are eliminated or their kids end up in cages or hungry, all is well in their world.

 

People without the ability (or the desire) to walk in someone else’s shoes are privileged brats. Period.

 

They are not Christians. They can proclaim their Christianity until the cows come home, but Jesus (assuming he’s real and up there in heaven) will straighten them out pretty fast:

 

Matthew 7:21-23 English Standard Version 

I Never Knew You

²¹ “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. ²² On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ ²³ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

 

It breaks my heart. They’ve traded in Jesus’s message and  majesty for a golden calf.

 

I hope this gives a few of them sufficient anxiety to dig a little deeper into their Bible and into their chosen “news” (noise) sources so they figure it out before it’s too late. I’d hate to see them depressed for all eternity.