This Addictive Chaos

I wake up at about 4am each morning and the first thing I do is turn on  MSNBC, CNN, or CSPAN Washington Journal.  The moment I arrive home from work each evening, the first thing I do is turn on MSNBC or CNN.  I can’t seem to help myself.  I think I’m addicted to the daily drama and trauma caused by this president.

Isn’t this the definition of addiction:  repeatedly engaging in a behavior that is self-destructive?  My need to learn what outrageous folly Donald Trump has inflicted upon this country and the world since I last watched the news is an addiction.  And my behavior is destructive because I can feel my blood pressure rising with every re-ignited outrage and my pure distain for the way he is dishonoring and disfiguring the office of the presidency. I try deep breathing.

Too many days I feel unwell.  I feel stressed.   I feel angry.  I feel disgusted.  I feel under siege.  I feel empathic and protective of others who are truly under attack by this president.  But I know I’m not alone.  And I don’t feel helpless.  I feel like fighting for my country–all the time!  I felt like taking a knee during the national anthem at our homecoming game last week, but I was walking outside the stadium at the time and instead of stopping as others did, I kept walking.  That was my knee moment.

To be sure, my distress strengthens my resolve to fight.  I won’t let anyone around me be ignorant of what is going on and I remind everyone I converse with that silence is consent and that none of us can afford to allow our nation to be degraded and our values to be trampled upon and the rule of law to be utterly ignored without objection.  At least a few times each week, I find myself emailing this president to express my ire at something he has done.   I also email senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, or speaker of the House, Paul Ryan.  I might email my congresswoman Julia Brownley or Senators Kamela Harris and Diane Feinstein, too.  These women need encouragement to keep up the good fight.

I realize that President Trump is the toxic (cancerous) cigarette and the media is the lighter.  But I just can’t stop smoking.  We need to throw out the cigarette and use the lighter to light a scented candle.  We all need a break, but now is not the time.

There is a part of me that wants to turn off the news.  But I’m not one to stick my head in the sand.  I miss the days when I could miss a few days of the daily machinations of Washington and know the country wasn’t falling apart.  These days I wake up each morning to see which shoe has dropped.  My biggest fear is waking up to find that we are at war with North Korea.

You know things are bad when several psychologists put aside their practice of not diagnosing someone they have yet to meet to go on television to publicly warn the nation of Trump’s unfit mental capacity.

I will say that I received comfort this week when Senator John McCain, President Barak Obama and President George W. Bush all took Trump to task for the chaos and nationalist values he is inflicting upon our country (without ever mentioning his name, by the way).  Their resistance provided me with a much needed breather.  I wonder how many others felt a sense of relief when these leaders finally spoke up in dissent?  I just hope they and other public officials continue to rise in defense of our nation.  I have to take a knee that they will.