Trump Fatigue

I'll tip my hat to the new Constitution

Take a bow for the new revolution

Smile and grin at the change all around

Pick up my guitar and play

Just like yesterday

Then I'll get on my knees and pray

We don't get fooled again

Don't get fooled again, no, no

Yeah

Meet the new boss

Same as the old boss

The great scribe Peter Townshend penned these words, ironically enough, the same year I was born – 1971. If you don’t know – and shame on you if you don’t – Peter Townshend was/is the great guitarist from the iconic band, “The Who.” He also wrote most of their big hits, including this one called “We Don’t Fooled Again.”

It’s been almost two full weeks since the election and this classic song popped into my head the other day. The lyrics apply today more than they did when Townshend wrote them 53 years ago.

Related to that, something else that popped into my head was George W. Bush struggling with the old "fool me once" phrase.

America, you have been fooled twice, so shame on you.

Two weeks ago, our nation chose as their new boss the same boss we had four years ago. Follow along to those music lyrics above. They – and yes, I will take zero credit for this – chose to elect someone who wants to do away with the Constitution.  They voted to elect someone who tried to incite a violent new revolution on the Capitol Building and our government on January 6, 2021. And now it is time for the rest of us to get on our knees and pray.

Donald Trump did manage to fool enough people again to vote for him. He convinced over 76 million people to entrust him with the title of Most Powerful Man in the World. 

Unlike his previous two runs for the presidency, Trump won the popular vote this time. He even won a majority, garnering 50.1% of the electorate’s vote. 

What has he done since the last election to gain more support than he did the previous two times he ran? Surely, he must have rehabilitated his legacy on par with what Jimmy Carter did for his post-presidency, right? Even Richard Nixon became a little more likeable after he was forced to leave office after Watergate.

So what did Trump do to become more well-liked?

Well, I already mentioned the January 6 riots that Trump incited by making a speech immediately preceding the march on the Capitol. He said such things in the speech as:

 “You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.”

“And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

“So we’re going to, we’re going to march down Pennsylvania Avenue. I love Pennsylvania Avenue. And we’re going to the Capitol.”

“So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.”

I remember listening to that speech live and I thought to myself, “Holy shit. Trump is going to walk with this mob down to the Capitol Building.” That’ll be a sight. 

Silly me. Trump retreated to the safety of the White House and left his fired-up legions to do his bidding. Six people died in the ensuing hours and 174 police officers were injured as a result of the riot that Trump flamed.

That day should have been the end of Donald Trump. That day he took a blowtorch to his political future and legacy. The man ordered a desecration of one of our most symbolic buildings of democracy. 

His legions were threatening to hang the Vice President of the United States if they got their hands on him. Congressmen – Democrats and Republicans – were hiding under desks or in closets. Secret service had guns drawn in the hallowed chambers of Congress. The visuals were surreal. History was recording this.

Yet, I was wrong. Maybe Trump was right after all. He once claimed he could pull out a gun and kill someone in a crowded street in broad daylight in downtown Manhattan and still people would vote for him. 

Here he was putting that theory to the test.

As if that wasn’t enough, what else has happened since the last election to earn Trump more support than his previous two runs for presiden:.

Trump was caught with classified documents strewn all over his Mar-a-Lago estate, including stashed in a restroom near a toilet in case anyone needed some reading material while doing their duty.

There was a taped hour-long conference call with representatives from the state of Georgia, just after the election, in which Trump implores the Secretary of State of Georgia to find him 11,000 votes to overturn the results of the election in the state.

Then there was the Stormy Daniels saga which resulted in a conviction on 34 felony charges. The man was now a convicted felon.

At an annual convention for the National Association of Black Journalists just five months before the election, Trump told the crowd that illegal immigrants were taking away “Black jobs.” Oh, so now there are White jobs and Black jobs? What, exactly, did he consider Black jobs? Servants? Janitors? Maids? Groundskeepers? That one comment alone would have been enough to derail any presidential campaign when I was growing up.

But there was more. Mere days before the election, Trump said in a rally – all cocky and confident – that his advisers had warned him not to say this, but he was going to say it anyway, that he would protect women “whether the women like it or not.” Essentially, he was saying that women can’t protect themselves, or think for themselves. He was saying that women were not smart enough to make decisions about their bodies. Only he was wise enough to do that.

His own wife came out with a book last month stating her support for abortion rights. She wrote, “It is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children, based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government. Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body?”

And where was Melania throughout the whole campaign? Was she disgusted when she found out that Trump was having an affair with a Playboy model named Karen McDougal at the time she was pregnant with their son, Barron.

Lord knows she had millions of other reasons to be mad at him… and hundreds of million more reasons to stay with him.

And where was Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, during the campaign. She was such a prominent figure in his previous runs for president. You remember Ivanka – the one Trump said, “If Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her. Isn’t that terrible?” Yes, Donald, it is.

But this shouldn’t be surprising coming from a man who once said that being a celebrity allowed him to get away with groping women, grabbing them by the vagina, and kissing them whenever he wanted.

As if it weren’t enough that his own family doesn’t want to be seen with him, people from his own party and even people Trump chose for his Cabinet members have come out against him in unheard of numbers. 

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, probably the biggest villain for Democrats this century before Trump threw his MAGA hit into the political ring, came out in support of Kamala Harris.

Dick Friggin' Cheney!!!!! I couldn't believe it.

I’m not proud of the endorsement, but how more telling can it be when the poster child of the Republican Conservative movement comes out in support of a Democratic black woman candidate for President?

I mean, come on. Do I even need to mention Trump calling prisoners of war “losers”? Trump using Arlington Cemetery as a photo op? Trump using the campaign for personal financial gain by selling personalized Bibles, silver coins, shoes, and watches? Trump saying that the enemy from within – referring to, essentially, anyone that talks bad about him (media, politicians, educators, taxi drivers, janitors, you, me) – is more dangerous than any foreign threat, including Russia or North Korea?

Sadly, I could go on and on. There has never been a more clear cut decision between choosing between good and evil since Pontius Pilate presented a crowd in Jerusalem with the choice of executing either Jesus or Barabbas.

And just like that day two thousand years ago, on November 5, the crowd chose evil.

And that is what is depressing. And that has what got me thinking.

It is not just because the person I wanted to win lost. She wouldn’t have been in my top fifty choices for president, regardless of party. I would have voted for anyone rather than Trump – anyone who has a heart and compassion.

It is not just because a Republican won that has me down in the dumps. I’ve lived through Reagan and both Bushes. They seemed to be all bumbling buffoons, but they were harmless and seemed like genuinely nice, kind people.

No, I am depressed because this specific Republican candidate won. It is because of what he represents – both politically, philosophically, and morally. And the fact that 50.1% of people voted for him means to me that more than half of our society agrees with him. It means, to me, that more than half of our society is him. And I don't want to be part of a society like that.

And that is scary and depressing to me. And I know I am not alone.

I’ll be honest that most of the campaign news I’ve gotten the last few months has been from late night talk shows. I didn’t realize it until my therapist pointed it out to me that I, subconsciously, was choosing that form of medium to get my news as a healthier option to just watching the tiresome, drab, depressing cable news networks. It was the equivalent of putting your dog’s medicine mixed in with his food. I needed my politics sprinkled with some humor.

I was moved by, seemingly, all the late night talk show hosts taking a few minutes at the beginning of their first post-election shows to talk directly into the camera, with no studio audience, to say they were all disappointed, just like us, by the results of the election.They all concluded by saying they have a job to do – which is to make people laugh – but that they understand people’s mental health is in a fragile state right now. Essentially, they were all saying we will get through this together. I don’t know if that was coordinated by all the late night shows, but I thought it was cool.

This past Saturday night, I thought Saturday Night Live was going to be doing the same thing when I saw their “cold open.” It started out with four of their cast members standing, very solemnly with hands crossed before them, talking to the camera. They all took turns saying how shocked and disappointed they were by the election results. But in true SNL fashion, they put a comedic twist on it, when halfway through the skit, Keenan Thompson looks at the camera and tells Trump – fearing his wrath and retribution – that they were all behind him all along. It was a genius way of staying true to both their values and their responsibility.

So, yes, this is going to be a very tough time for many of us. 

I’m not going to lie – my initial reaction was suicidal. It wasn’t something I was contemplating doing that day, but I couldn’t foresee how I would be able to endure another four years of having to see this guy’s face and hear his voice and his lies. Beyond that, I couldn’t foresee myself living in a world that accepts a person like this as their leader.

I spoke to my psychiatrist on the phone about this just a few days ago. He is, usually, very professional so I was surprised when he dropped a few F-bombs while discussing the election with me. He told me that if it helps it all, I was wong in saying that half of society supports Trump and his ideology.

He broke it down for me. Not everyone that I am thinking of is of voting age. Of the people that are of voting age, not everyone voted. So, if you really break it down, according to my doctor, maybe, truly, only about 25-30% of people agree with Trump’s vision.

Good try, but it is still way too much. And the fact remains that now he will be running our country with the Republicans having full control of both sides of Congress. He will have no checks and balances. He will have as close to his dream of a dictatorship as any American leader can have.

Unlike the previous Republican presidents I mentioned, he will have a direct effect on many of us, including me. In my case, he will continue to appoint like-minded ultra-Conservative judges to the courts and pass laws giving judges far more discretion to overrule medical evidence and deny benefits to the needy.

If you have been following along, I am, currently, waiting six months on what is expected to be a year-long wait for my Social Security Disability case to be reviewed by an Appeals Council. I lost my case before a Republican-appointed Administrative Law Judge because, in her ruling, she didn’t view the overwhelming, supportive evidence of my professional providers “persuasive enough.”

My lawyer told me that had my case been presented prior to Trump taking office in 2016, that I had a "slam dunk" case. Judges, prior to Trump's presidency, had no choice but to accept the medical records on their merit and rule, accordingly. Basically, the judges' hands were tied by whatever the medical records stated.

One of the first things Trump did when he got in office was get a law passed allowing judges to ignore the medical records and make their own judgements, based on the brief thirty-minute hearing with the claimant and the evidence presented.

So, now, here I am – three years into the process with no end in sight and prospects for winning my case, seemingly, greatly diminished thanks to the re-election of the man who killed my chances in the first place.

Say hello to the new boss. Same as the old boss.

But beyond that, I am worried about what I will call “Trump Fatigue.” Pooh-pooh it all you like as just another made up, all-encompassing excuse of a disease like chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia. But I consider it an all-too-real thing.

I didn’t really find anything online or on YouTube when I searched “Trump fatigue” in terms of people suffering mental heath issues related to the constant barrage of having to see or hear from Trump every day of their lives. I found that interesting.

So let me be the first to coin the phrase.

Trump hasn’t even become president yet and I am already fed up. Since he has been elected, I have had to hear about him calling the Ukranian president and having Elon Musk – for whatever reason – join the call.

I have had to hear about his nominees for his Cabinet being awarded to all his unqualified cronies. He is treating the government as if it were another episode of Celebrity Apprentice. Imagine if Meat Loaf or Joan Rivers were still alive.

I mean, Matthew Gaetz as Attorney General? Is this some kind of a sick joke? This can’t be real. Without even looking at his record, the guy just looks like a sleazeball. An then you look at his record.

You have the other ones – the FOX weekend news anchor who he is naming as Secretary of Defense. The guy he constantly referred to as “Little” Marco Rubio to Secretary of State. He appointed the guy who claims he once had a dead worm in his brain and who drives around with dead bears and whales in his car as Secretary of the Department of Health.

And he isn’t even president yet.

There will be no avoiding it. I can boycott the news as much as I want. I can avoid social media. I can stop watching TV. I can do as much as humanly possible, but it will be inevitable that every day for the next four-plus years I will hear the name “Donald Trump.”

I won’t be able to watch my late night talk shows anymore without hearing stories about him. I won’t be able to watch an episode of Saturday Night Live for the next four years without seeing some skit with some comedian playing the role of Trump.

There will be reminders of him everywhere.

If I go to a doctor’s office, there will, most likely, be a TV in the waiting room and that TV will, most likely, be showing some news program and there he will be.

If I walk through a supermarket or convenience store and I walk past the newspaper stand, there will be his picture on the front page of some newspaper with some stupid thing he is saying or claiming or threatening.

If I go to a family function for some festive holiday dinner for the next four years, you know the name Trump will get mentioned and a heated discussion will follow.

It is just too much to bare. The scowl on his face. The fakeness. The inauthenticity. The selfishness. The greed. The contempt. The negativity. The pure evil. 

Every. Single. Day. For. The. Next. Four. Years.

And everytime I see his face, it will be a reminder that I am looking at a reflection of today's society.

And I don't like what I see.