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.