BOOKS OF THE YEAR PART II

Read and Selected by Ruth A. Sheets

Here is the second installment of my excellent books of the year collection.  I hope you like some of these too.

1. The Naked Don’t Fear the Water, An Underground Journey with Afghanistan Refugees by Matthieu Aikins (Matt left Afghanistan with his Afghan interpreter who wanted a life in Europe.  They used smugglers and scary strategies to get first to Turkey, then to Greece, then beyond.  They survived when many didn’t.  )

 2. Go Back to Where You Came From and Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American by Wajahat Ali (The writer describes growing up in CA and the biases against himself and his family even though he was born in America.  The book is funny, sad, and a peek into the lives of an immigrant family that has been here 50 years.) 

3. Making Numbers Count, The Art and Science of Communicating Numbers by Chip Heath & Karla Starr (A great book about the way we can simplify number examples to make them more comprehensible and able to change minds:  3 of 10 instead of 30%, 1 every ____ minutes, on the 1^st yardline of the football field instead of 1%, using terms and sizes people can relate to.)  

 4. The End of Bias, A Beginning by Jessica Nordell (Everyone has biases and they are started early.  However there are many strategies we can use as a people to make those biases less harmful and destructive.  The book includes police departments working to change their culture of violence and businesses working to become truly inclusive.)

 5. A Christmas Legacy by Anne Perry (I loved this book about the rich getting theirs.  Gracie goes to sub for a friend at a rich house where the servants are like family but there is something wrong.  The old woman being nearly starved to death is the owner of the house.

 6. Until Justice Be Done , America’s First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction by Kate Masur (So many Black Americans and their allies were working for their rights at this time, but being fought at every turn by white men who just couldn’t bear to imagine that Black people were equal to themselves.  A shameful history for this nation)

 7. The Best Strangers in the World, Stories From a Life Spent Listening by Ari Shapiro (This is a great memoir of a really good broadcaster, describing some of his background, his life of interviewing people, and his caring nature, as well as his other talents like singing with an indy band and cooking.)

 8. Myth America, Historians Take on the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past by Kevin Michael Kruse & Julian E. Zelizer (These were essays about various events that didn’t happen as people often think:  Black people rarely protested before the 1950s and 60s, there was no “southern strategy” by the Republicans, the “Great Society” changed nothing.  All lies but people still believe them.)

 9. The White Lady by Jacqueline Winspear (Eleanor White lived I Belgium during WWI when she and her older sister were recruited to work as spies for a WWII resistance group Because of her skills.  After the war, she tries to make a life for herself and gets connected with a crime family as she tries to save one of their former members.)

 10. A Redbird Christmas by Fannie Flagg (A man with serious lung disease goes south to possibly recover.  He falls in love with the tiny Alabama town and the people who come to love him too.  Sweet and funny)   

 11. The Common Good by Robert Reich (On this second reading of this book, I found it is still relevant and important.  It looks at our need to pay more attention to working for the common good.)

 12. Nine Black Robes, Inside the Supreme Court’s Drive to the Right and Its Historic Consequences by Joan Biskupic (An excellent retelling of the transformation of an already-failing SC into the right-wing anti-American bastion of male arrogance and desires its conservatives  have become, even the female conservative justice.)

 13. Poverty by America by Matthew Desmond (A quick summary of the ways we the people maintain poverty in this country by what we buy, who we allow in our neighborhoods, who banks lend to or don’t, the way we permit landlords to keep people living in squalor while charging outrageous rents, etc.  well-constructed)

 14. Science and the Skeptic, Discerning Fact from Fiction by Marc Zimer (It is a positive to be a skeptic if one is a scientist, but not so much when the information supporting a theory or finding is overwhelming.  Good overview with good talking points.)

 15. Above Ground by Clint Smith (beautiful poems about fatherhood and the world his son would inherit and how he feels about it.)

 16. Paved Paradise, How Parking Explains the World by Henry Grabar (I never drove, but found this book fascinating and fun in places to see what people will go through to get a parking space and how much land is taken up with such parking spaces.)

 17. Off With Her Head, 3,000 Years of Demonizing Women In Power by Eleanor Herman (I loved this book that took the various misogynistic tropes like ambition, appearance, female hormones, shrillness of her voice, neglect of family, being a bitch that are used to tell women that they have no right to positions of power.  It’s been going on for so long even a lot of women have bought the nonsense and will vote for anyone but a woman and men and women will malign through social media any woman in power.)

 18. Viral Justice, How We Grow the World We want by Ruha Benjamin (This was a really good book about the way we can look at issues like racism and connect with others to find ways to change things where we are.  Ruha uses her own personal journey to illustrate.  Very hopeful.)      

 19. When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Land (This was a hilarious book about an angel and a demon that lived in early 20^th century Poland in a Jewish community who decided they should come to America to help protect the immigrants from their village while in America.  Lots of Jewish humor!

 20. The Teachers, A Year Inside America’s Most Vulnerable Important Profession by Alexandra Robbins (The book mostly follows 3 teachers and what it was like during 2021-2022 trying to recover from pandemic times with limited resources, sometimes support and appreciation, and interesting but challenging students.  The author mentions a variety of other teachers and their experiences as well.)  

 21. A Bit of Earth by Karuna Raizi (I loved this retelling of “The Secret Garden” as the story of an immigrant girl from South Asia coming to New York, trying to adjust and connect with the family who has taken her in and the community where they live. Gr.4-7 and anyone who loved “The Secret Garden”) 

 22. Weathering, The Extraordinary Stress of Ordinary Life in an Unjust Society by Arline T. Geronius (an excellent  but scary account of how just living in a society that does not value certain people can “weather” them causing them to get serious illnesses, to die young, and to live a whole lifetime with chronic illnesses.) 

 23. The Wax Pack, On the Road In Search of After Life by Brad Balukjian (The author ordered a pack of baseball cards from 1985 and set out in 2015 to find and interview all the guys on the 14 cards in the pack.  He reached most of them.  Gary Templeton and Don Cardin were the most interesting to me.)

  24. Welcome to the Circus of Baseball, A Story of the Perfect Summer at the Perfect Ballpark at the Perfect Time by Ryan McGee (A fun book about a minor league intern and his adventures in Ashville, NC in 1994.)

 25. Accounting for Slavery, Masters and Management by Caitlin Rosenthal (When looking for accounts of how early American business records were kept, she is given a plantation account book from SC, the author realizes that slavery was not just something owners did out of habit, but for them was good business.  She cites records from account books and the information as well as what else was going on economically at the time. 

 26. One Fatal Flaw by ?Anne Perry (This is one of those writers that every book is a gem.  In this one, lawyer Daniel Pitt defends a woman in 2 arson/murder trials.

 27. The Librarian Spy, A Novel of WWII by Madeline Martin (Ava, a Library of Congress librarian is recruited to go to Lisbon to interpret French and German newspapers and letters.  In France, Helenne works on a printing press after her husband disappears.  She learns he was in the Resistance and she wants to help too.  The two women come together at a distance when Helenne tries to rescue a Jewish mother and son.  They finally meet after the war.) 

 28. Readme.text by Chelsea Manning (This is the memoir of a transwoman who did her best to do the male thing, even joining the military.  She released information about the ridiculous, harmful actions  in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, none that put people at risk, but the military went crazy in their treatment of her.)

 29. Finally Seen by Kelly Yang (Lena arrives in the US from China and finds that things are not as great as her parents wrote and told her they were.  She gradually learns English and to express herself, particularly through art and her courage.  Gr.4-7)

 30. The Four Seasons of Jackie Robinson by Kostya Kennedy (Jackie Robinson was a complex person who believed deeply in human rights for all and loved baseball and its challenges for a Black man in a white sport.  He was an advocate for both baseball and civil rights for most of his life.)

 31. On Democracy by E.B. White with John Meacham (This was a collection of essays and letters to the editor by White from 1928 to 1976.  They are remarkably relevant today.  It is almost as though he predicted a lot of what is going on now, people pushing to end democracy without realizing what it would mean for them.)

32. The Swamp Fox, How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution by John Oller (Francis Marion was one of my heroes growing up.  This book let me know I was right to have him as a hero.  He and his men were all partisans surviving mostly on what they could steal from the British or what was donated by friends.  They harassed the British incessantly despite being betrayed several times by members of their crew and scared locals.)

 33. The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America by Thom Hartmann (In category by category, the author shows the ways presidents have appointed people to the Court who would ignore and twist the Constitution to fit their personal beliefs and do it with impunity.  He suggests some changes that could help fix this.) 

 34. Better Living Through Birding, Notes From a Black Man in the Natural World by Christian Cooper (The Black man who was threatened with the police when he demanded a woman put her dog on a leash as required in that part of Central Park presents a memoir of his life as a gay Black man who loves birding and nature in general.)

 35. Prequal, An American Fight Against Fascism by Rachel Maddow (As a follow-up to her podcast “Ultra,” the book looks at the many people involved in the Fascist movements in this country leading up to WWII.  There were many members of Congress involved, including several prominent senators.  There were also people who did their best to stop them and hold them accountable.)

 OK, there are a few more than last week’s collection, but I was so fortunate to have read so many excellent books this year.  There were a bunch more too that just missed the arbitrary cut-off.  I hope you pick a few to peruse and enjoy.     Have a spectacular Christmas/Kwanza/winter holiday.  Make the New Year remarkable and special for as many people as you can.

BOOKS OF THE YEAR PART I

Selected by Ruth A. Sheets

Last December, I decided to present a list of my favorite books of the year.  I am lucky that I have time to read a lot.  I’ve read around 350 books so far in a wide variety of genre.  Here are just a few that I have liked a lot.  I must say, though that if I don’t like a book after the 3^rd or 4^th chapter, I usually ditch it.  That means that the books I have included here I really liked and recommend to anyone who is into that genre.  They are in the order in which I read them.  Here goes!

1. The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen, Warfare, Constitutions, and the Making of the  Modern World by Linda Colley (Constitutions of various kinds were developed all over the world beginning around 1755 in Corsica, then Russia under Catherine, then the US.  Wars on land and sea often led to the spread of constitutional ideas and the “need” to write constitutions for government, often monarchies.)

     2.  America on Fire, The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s by Elizabeth Hinton (Police have been unbelievably violent toward Black citizens always, but to an extreme extent since the 1960s.  Every American needs to read this book, especially the white folks.)

3. Hospital, Life, Death, and Money In A Small American Town by Brian Alexander (This was a distressing book describing the spiral down of a small-town hospital that was taken over by people who saw the bottom line as more important than the people who needed the services of the hospital.  The town, Bryan, OH from 2018-2020)

 

4. The East St. Louis Massacre, The Greatest Outrage of the Century, 1917 by Ida B. Wells-Barnett (Wells-Barnett arrived in East St. Louis the day after the most horrendous attack on a Black community that had occurred to date, on July 2, 1917.  She reported first-hand accounts of the events from those who managed to escape.  There was so much violence and cover-up estimates of the number of Black citizens who were killed range from 40 to 200 (similar to the range 4 years later at the Greenwood Massacre in Tulsa OK).  White citizens, many of them union members, murdered Black people in the streets and even the National Guard the IL governor called in either helped in the killing or prevented anyone from stopping it. 

 

5. Under the Skin, the Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and the Health of Our Nation by Linda Villarosa (An excellent description of what racism hath wrought on the society, often unnoticed by white medical personnel but destructive to Black lives and the lives of others of color.  Disturbing that medical folks could just ignore, dismiss, and poorly treat people who already face so much that harms their health.)

 

6. Starry Messenger, Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization By Neil DeGrasse Tyson (beautiful presentation of the value of science and how it helps us understand everything.)
7. The Ogress and the Orphans by Kelly Barnhill (An ogress has a house on the edge of what was once a beautiful town, but something has happened.  Despite her kindness to everyone, the mayor talks everyone into blaming her for their problems.  The mayor is actually a disguised dragon who is undermining the town’s happiness.  The orphans befriend the ogress and they try to help the people bring happiness back to their town despite those who would continue the hatred and negativity.  It is an allegory of today’s America. Gr.4 and up)

 

8. 999, The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz by Heather Dune Macadam (The girls and young women were taken from Slovakia.  They had no idea what would happen to them.  They were part of the work camps at Auschwitz.  Many died, many were tortured, and many took care of each other so they would survive.  Every person targeting people in this country to harm, like trans persons should read and consider this book, because cruelty was the point of everything the Germans did.)

 

9. Honey Bee, Poems and Short Prose by Naomi Shihab Nye (a beautiful collection with pieces for different ages, but all thought-provoking.  The last one about awaiting a delayed flight brought tears.) 

 

10. The Math of Life and Death, Seven Mathematical Principles that Shape Our Lives by Kit Yates (I am not a mathy person, but found this book compelling.  It looks at the ways math can help, hurt, and even kill us depending on how it is used and by whom.)

 

11. Torn Apart, How the Child-Welfare System Destroys Black Families and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World by Dorothy Roberts (an excellent account of the many ways  the child welfare folks stalk homes of Black families, take away the children for foster care with little or no reason while white families in the same situation are left alone.  Amazing and really upsetting!)  

 

12. No True Believers by Rabiah York Lumbard (Two Muslim high school seniors are seen as suspicious of having caused or at least helped with a terrorist attack.  They learn it was a disgruntled man and his son who belonged to a hate group trying to rid our country of Muslims.  They and friends help stop a more serious attack.)

 

13. Disfigured, On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space by Amanda Leduc (The author, a person with CP, describes the challenges of all the fairy tales that have “disabled” characters, have them as the villains.  People with disabilities can’t see themselves doing the things able-bodied persons do, so begin to see themselves as less than “normal” not just different.     

 

14. Lady Liberty, Women, The Law, and The Battle to Save America  by Dahlia Lithwick (Women have been working,                 almost underground to preserve our democracy:  defending women’s rights, defending immigrants falsely about to be deported, fighting for voting rights, a fair census, and more.)

 

15. The Destructionists, the 25 Year Crack-up of the Republican Party by Dana Milbank (Republicans use many strategies to undermine our democracy from Newt Gingrich to all the folks who helped Trump with his “Big Lie” and the insurrection of Jan. 6^th.  The lying never stops and Republicans at all levels are involved in it.)

 

16. The Woman They Could Not Silence, One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear by Kate Moore (Elizabeth Packard was declared insane by her minister husband who got doctors to certify it.  She was confined in an asylum for 3 years where she was abused, seduced by the director, but able to maintain her sanity despite the conditions.  She helped to change the climate of the institution and how residents were treated.  She should be remembered for her work for women’s rights.)     

 

17. On Critical Race Theory, Why It Matters, and Why You Should Care by Victor Ray (Looks at what CRT really is and how important it is for everyone to know.  Racism is systemic and must be addressed systemically.  It is essential we work to stop racism, but first, people need to know where it can be found every day, no matter who claims racism does not exist.)  

 

18. The Library Book by Susan Orlean (Begins with the day of the great fire at the LA library in 1986 when a half-million books were destroyed and another nearly 500,000 books severely damaged.  She came to the belief that it was impossible to determine who had started the fire if anyone had done it.  The library has been repaired and expanded since then.)

 

19. Stringing Rosaries, The History, The Unforgivable, and the Healing of Northern Plains American Indian Boarding School Survivors by Denise K. Lajimodiere (This is one of the most disturbing but necessary books I have read in a while.  Survivors tell of the brutality inflicted upon students at several of the boarding schools they were either forced to attend by the state, or attended because parents had no money for education.  Many died in the schools either by illness, loneliness, or suicide.  The brutality killed some too and there was no accountability for the perpetrators as far as the survivors knew.)

 

20. What the Fact, Finding the Truth in All the Noise by Seema Yasmin (An excellent book for people of any age about the way our brains deal with information, how we can be manipulated, and how we can realize it is OK to be wrong and to carefully listen to others.)

 

21. What the Ermin Saw, The Extraordinary Journey of Leonardo Da Vinci’s most Mysterious Portrait by Eden Collinsworth (I really liked this book about a painting that got to travel all over the world.  Leonardo worked on the painting 3 different times to get the portrait that hangs in a Krakow museum today.)    

 

22. Hold The Line, The Insurrection and One Cop’s Battle for America’s Soul by Michael Fanone & John Shiffman (This book about a police officer who went to the Capitol on Jan. 6^th to help the officers under attack and was attacked by the insurgents.  He had been an officer in DC for 22 years before that and got little to no support after the Jan. 6^th events from fellow officers who were still stuck on Trump.)

 

23. A Knock At Midnight, A Story of Hope, Justice, and Freedom by Brittany K. Barnett (a young law student is captivated by the story of a woman given a life sentence for possessing a small amount of crack though there was no actual evidence and the people who accused her were long-time criminals who got much lighter sentences for ratting her out.  She left her corporate law job to work to free wrongly sentenced people.)

 

24. The Light We Carry, Overcoming in Uncertain Times by Michelle Obama (This is an excellent account of how a person’s life experiences shape who they are and that they can learn from them and continue growing through the hard times if we permit ourselves to deal with the uncertainties of life.)   

 

25. Dinners with Ruth, A Memoir on the Power of Friendships  by Nina Totenberg (The author talks about how friendships sustained her, particularly with Ruth Bader Ginsberg.  She had friendships with several SC justices which made her coverage of the Court more interesting and understandable.)

 

26. The Pregnancy Project, A Memoir by Gaby Rodriguez & Jenna Glatzer (Gabi is from a working-class family in small-town Washington State.  Her community expects little of her and since her mother got pregnant at 14, she is expected to also.  She fakes a pregnancy to find out what it is like for girls who become pregnant in her community in 2011.) 

 

27. Mouse, A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman (The father of the author told him the story of his time during WWII, in Polish ghettos, nearly a year in Auschwitz, and the post war struggles in refugee centers and searching for his wife who had also survived.  They came to America where they had a son who became an artist who wrote and illustrated the book from his father’s memories.)

 

28. Sir Callie and the Champions of Helston by Esme Symes-Smith (I was not sure whether I would like this one, but it turned out to be a fascinating fantasy about a non-binary 12-year old who wants to be a knight but has the magic only girls are supposed to have.  Everyone sees them as female except their dad and some friends.  Callie works to get everyone to see that people should be who they are.  Gr.5-8 and older)

 

29. The Final Gambit by Jennifer Lynne Barnes (This is the third book of the “inheritance Game.”  There were more puzzles and intrigues related to the Hawthorne family, people we didn’t know about previously.  The whole trilogy was Terrific!) 

 

30 Win Every Argument, The Art of Debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking by Mehdi Hasan (I loved this book full of tips and tricks for public speaking with a lot of actual examples.  I took notes.  

 

If you read any of these books, I would love to know what you thought of them.  Happy reading!!

THE ANXIETY-DESPERATION FACTOR

By Ruth A. Sheets

It is painful to see how many people are either in despair or experiencing significant anxiety in this nation.  The number of deaths from overdoses and those from suicide each year is startling.  Many of our family members, neighbors, and fellow Americans can't see a future without drugs they have to get from strangers who care nothing for them.  Some people turn their anxiety into fear, anger, or both which leaves them perpetually on edge.  Others see their lives as irrelevant or decide life is just no longer worth the effort.  This anxiety and despair are devastating and are tearing us apart.  It does not have to be this way. 

I am thinking we could do a lot to ease some of this despair and anxiety if we did a few things, admittedly difficult things, but I believe the lives of those we love as well as the lives of strangers matter and are worth the trouble.  

1. invoke the 14th Amendment section 3 and make Trump ineligible to run in the 2024 election.  Trump is a divider.  He has been indicted on 91 criminal counts and even if some judges might have biases toward him, at least some of them will stick.  Trump is working to make this nation a dictatorship where he will be permitted to take vengeance on anyone he does not like (and that is most people).  He tells us over and over that he will do away with our democracy, turning our nation into something it will be hard to change back since he plans never to leave the White House if he is re-elected.

 

2. We need positive stories on news and other programs every day or two.  I remember reading “if it bleeds, it leads” so media pump out the blood and guts first and often keep it going.  That could be changed if We demanded it.  Several times a week, we need positive coverage of things our neighbors are doing to improve things where they are.  A program on WHYY radio each Monday called “Good Souls” focuses on someone nominated by a community member for the things they have done for family, friends, neighbors, or whole communities.  It is popular and very inspiring.  That could be adopted elsewhere too.

 

3. Pressure social media to curtail the amount of mis and dis-information pumped out and fine the offending corporations significantly for spewing lies and other posts that put people's lives at risk, with guidelines identifying what the parameters are.  We the People have permitted whiny white child-men to decide that lies and fraud can be pumped out on their platforms as much as possible as long as it brings in the bucks, even if it threatens people’s lives.  That should never be acceptable, even with free speech as one of the pillars of our democracy.

 

4. open more centers where people who are addicted can take their drugs of choice under supervision while also having services for them to treat their addiction available if they choose to take advantage of it.  I haven’t figured out what the opposition to these centers is but it is loud and powerful.  I guess folks would prefer people to overdose alone rather than walk into a place where they can take drugs safely.  I can’t help but wonder what that says about us as a people.

 

5. Pass laws that make it illegal to discriminate against LGBTQ+ persons and help people learn about them so people's fear may be less intense and dangerous.  Gov. DeSantis of Florida and some of his colleagues have decided LGBTQ+ persons are worthy targets of their efforts to promote fear and hatred, targeting trans youth in particular.  The legislators who have passed the “Don’t say gay” laws should be ashamed of themselves, going after vulnerable people, but nope, not a bit.  They also want to target people of color in general through banning books with main characters of color, claiming they are making white kids uncomfortable.  White kids should be a bit uncomfortable knowing that even today, people of color are discriminated against in ways they as white people will not be.  Reading about characters who are different from themselves can foster in kids an empathy DeSantis and the white Republican state legislators didn’t develop as children.

 

6. Change the rules in the Senate so one person can't stop everything as Tommy Tupperville of Alabama stopped military promotions since February, demanding women in the military not be able to be reimbursed for travel to a state where they can obtain an abortion if they choose to do so.  He left military families in limbo waiting to learn where they would be assigned.  Mr. Tupperville (it is hard to think of such an unamerican person as senator) will never be pregnant, yet he thinks he should have the right to dictate to women what they can and can’t do related to their own bodies, particularly women who have chosen to serve in our military  , something Tupperville didn’t do.  I guess he thinks having been a football coach makes him worthy to stop military promotions and control women’s bodies, causing anxiety for a lot of people that is completely unnecessary.  

 

7. make the previous year's budget stand the following year if Congress can't get its act together or wants to hold the nation hostage over their pet projects.  That way there would be no government closures.  I read that the past 3 Republican-initiated government closures cost We the People over $4 billion.  I know there are far better things that money could have been spent on.  The anxiety caused by worrying over whether the government will shut down for the whims of Republicans is tremendous and again, unnecessary.

 

8. Pass sensible gun restrictions that would include semiautomatic weapons of all kinds and high-capacity magazines.  Neither of these are necessary for anyone outside the military and even then, those weapons need to be used sparingly.  If a hunter needs such weapons, he is not a hunter.  Then background checks that take as long as they take are essential.  These and a few other regulations would lessen some of people’s anxiety and despair.

 

9. State and restate the concept that Freedom of Religion does not mean freedom for just conservative Christians and everyone else is somehow worthy of violence sent their way by those same conservative Christians.  Freedom of Religion means that all of us can worship or not worship as we choose, with respect and appreciation.  That means no established religion of any kind here.  This cannot be stated too often by our leaders.   Our courts need to stand by that premise in all their rulings no matter how much they are paid to do otherwise.  Our founders (whom the Supreme Court conservative justices claim to revere) were not all Christians and wanted religious freedom for everyone.

 

10. Deal with global warming head on.  Talk about it a lot with specific things people, local and state governments,  and corporations can do to slow it down.  We the People need to demand that corporations act on behalf of the planet and fine them painful amounts when they do things to harm the environment, no matter how "valuable" the corporations are.  We need to empower the white working-class people who believe they have been forgotten, to get involved.  We need everyone to see the ways it will benefit them and their children and grandchildren if they/we all act now to stop the coming disasters.

I know these will require a lot to accomplish, but they are all worth trying since so many people are stressed over our future and they are not wrong.  Right now, Republicans are looking to making this nation a dictatorship run by a bunch of thugs.  The scared white people who vote for Republicans somehow have lost their willingness to think things through and are almost holding Trump as their deity.  He's just a scared old man who cares only for himself, not a god anyone should want to believe in.

We all need to push our members of Congress and our President and Vice President to do more on behalf of the nation to ease the fear, anger, resentment, and hatred that have infested our nation.  I think of those emotions as the new “4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”  Everyone gets caught up with those Horsemen now and then, but too many Americans are now grazing on those emotions every day, maybe at night too, in their dreams.  They are blaming the wrong people for the “misfortune” they feel they are suffering and want to get even somehow.  They think that when they do, their lives will be better.  By the time they find out life for them under the representatives they have chosen isn’t better, in fact it’s much worse, it may be too late for them to do anything to fix it.  I suspect their resentment will still be there and they will still be blaming the wrong people, but there won’t be anyone in power who cares what they think or need.  Anxiety and despair are bad now, but will be far worse in the Trumpian world many Republican voters envision.  They just don’t know it yet.

We need to get the word out that anxiety and despair don’t have to be permanent.  We need good stories out here about positive people who helped others by doing important things to make the world, even their little part of it better.  Those frightened working-class folks need to see that Trump will not be part of their efforts.  He simply wouldn’t know how, if he even cared enough to try.