There are two issues colliding in my mind right now. First is that the news is STILL full of pissing and moaning and dooming and glooming about how no body wants to watch Biden knock of I2I4, the buffoonish Star Wars corruption bot out again. And, the second is just how stressed out we all feel about Trump’s judiciary having his back by unjustifiably delaying his trials and his high poll numbers, threatening us with a Grover Cleveland.
I guess that’s all that really proves is that no body reads Ye Olde Blogge. Ma Belle Femme shouts from the other room, We don’t need any further proof of that! Well, maybe it proves that they should. And, if that don’t prove that folks should be reading the Psy, then this post might could.
Back in the day when I was working in mental health, we had a saying, When you don’t have choices, you don’t have good mental health. It is a truism. Often we feel at our worst when we think we don’t have any way out of a crappy situation. I guess with student loans and home loan interest rates, a lot of today’s yutes feel like they are stuck in a crappy situation and will be forever. You can see why the youth vote might not be as reliable for Ol’ Handsome Joe as it was in 2020 when we were all going towards the light… at the end of the long Trump nightmare tunnel on his four-year long get-rich-quick-scam haunted train ride.
It’s like we got off of that ride only to realize we were still on it and it was an eight-year long grift being used to cover the implementation of the GOP Dystopia. With Texas and Oklahoma now burning, California being battered by repeated El Nino-driven storms, soaring summer-like temperatures in February, and blizzards covering the rest of the country, it’s like there is no waking from the nightmare that Trump and the Republicans have foisted upon us.
When we live in a two-party system and one side is busy vociferously promoting single-party pseudo-democratic minority-rule fascist oligarchy like they have in Russia, we really don’t have a choice. We all have to vote Democratic if we want to have a democracy. We don’t have a choice. We have to.
The operative term there is no choice. While people my abhor risk, except in the face of a sure loss, we also abhor being forced into anything. Of course, we are looking for options, but there literally are none. None that have a chance of actually winning an election and governing the country that is.
Without having a viable second party, the entire nation’s mental health is suffering, which is exactly what Trump and the GOP want. They don’t care if we suffer as long as we keep the firehose of middle class wealth deluging the one percent with cash. They want us to think we don’t have any choice but to live in Cancer Alley, drink Flint water, use Texas utilities, go to Florida schools, and be displaced by climate change-driven weather disasters. They want us to die quickly and quietly when we can no longer provide more than we use.
Comment on that! The entire country is stuck in the endless loop of threatened government shutdown, obviously corrupt judicial decisions, legislativeless Congresses, shrinking Civil Rights, and continual climate disasters all against the thunderous backdrop of gun violence, murder, and mayhem, which had eroded our collective mental health.
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The Psy of Life 
“The lack of choice in election 2024 mean the entire country has poor medical health” Calico you are so right. Massive national debt, interest payments taking up the bulk of the countries GDP.
Involvement in two costly conflicts with no end in sight.
Just what hope do these two old men offer the American people?
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Having been in numerous abusive relationships & been in therapy for years, this political situation feels exactly like I lived through for years. There’s no voting GOP & the Dems aren’t much better IMHO. The ones who are good are leaving politics to do other work & I don’t blame them but it doesn’t bode well for the future.
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Howdy Silver!
Trump and, now, the GOP are emotionally abusive. It is the resulting chronic stress that produces the results that they want whether it is in individual relationships or on a national scale. I’m sorry that you had to go through it, but I appreciate the confirmation.
At least, the Democrats are dedicated democratists and have done things to improve people’s lives. We can point to major Democratic legislation over the years that have dramatically changed the way the country functions and bettered the lives of millions: FDR’s New Deal, LBJ’s Great Society, Obama’s ACA, Biden’s infrastructure bill.
It amazes me that since Nixon every Republican president (a) should’ve been impeached and (b) should’ve been tried and jailed for the crime they committed in office. When I think of it, the Republicans have only produced two presidents of any substance, Lincoln and Ike.
The question I think we should be asking is whether we would prefer a post-Dobbs or pre-Dobbs America. The answer should guide your vote in 2024.
Huzzah!
Jack
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The problem with the Dems is that they don’t seem to know what a woman is. That’s really my only beef with them.
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Howdy Silver!
I have to ask, what do you mean? I don’t get it.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Dems adhere to the erroneous idea that any man can be a woman because he “feels” like a woman. Many Dem politicians have been asked “what is a woman” & they say that they can’t answer, when the answer is “an adult female”. I am very strong on this. I am not anti-trans but I do not think that a person can change their sex & I am against the way boys are allowed to play in girls sports, because they feel they are girls, which is now resulting in the injury of girl athletes & the boys winning everything. This is true in adult sports, too. If trans athletes want to compete, there should be a separate category for them. Protect women!
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Howdy Silver!
The trans athlete thing, I can agree with to a degree. Eighteen years of exposure to testosterone doesn’t undo itself. Muscle fiber changes when testosterone is removed and replaced with estrogen, but joints and bones don’t. The width of shoulders makes men mechanically better suited for upper body strength. A transwoman’s shoulders don’t narrow if she begins her transition after their adult size is reached. Until we get more data and can discuss the possibilities more openly, though, I don’t know how this issue gets resolved in the public sphere.
Huzzah!
Jack
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My initial reaction to this subject was, “Yea, right, we’re all in PTSD.”, but that wasn’t right. There’s nothing POST traumatic about it. We are being bludgeoned and battered with bad news and having any notion of personal agency to do anything about it trashed. And as for a choice of whom to vote for, both sides predict that if we vote for the other one the country and maybe the world is doomed. (As we, who read The Psy know, only one of them is right.)
It is a bit of a wonder that anybody can think straight. Traumatic stress hijacks the amygdala. And, when it becomes chronic, it’s exhausting.
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Howdy Bob!
The prolonged exposure to stress and feelings of helplessness are part and parcel of the fascist takeover playbook. It is clear that the GOP is all in on keeping our politics as chaotic and stressful as possible.
But, the question of choice and feelings of choice is an interesting one. Given a rematch of Biden and Trump, people are feeling like they don’t really get a choice. It is a reflection of some of our disaffection with Biden and the economy and the success of the GOP’s stress-out-freak-out firehose-of-smear campaign against him.
Right now, the GOP strategy seems to be to drive down the base turn out for the Dems, knowing that even if their base turns out, it won’t be enough for the win.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Some of the feeling of not having a choice comes, I think, from the presumed nominees having so little effective competition in the nominating process. For the sportified political spectator, it’s boring.
Driving down the turnout of the Democrat base has been in the GOP plan in one form or another for a long time.
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Howdy Bob!
Now, here’s a thought. There’s widespread dissatisfaction with Biden as a candidate, and the likely alternatives to him are too loyal to the party to challenge him, so why isn’t there a movement to draft a more popular more viable candidate. Why haven’t the dissatisfied rallied around a candidate to anoint, like Gavin Newsom? He’s clearly interested in the position and would be willing to run if he thought it a viable option.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Each party has a guy who one the office before. One is the incumbent, and the other thinks he should be. I’m thinking about the good old Risk Versus Reward system. And, in the case of the GOP they are all terrified of the MAGAs, some with good and personal reason.
Then there’s Biden’s low key, non-showboat way of doing things. he won in 2020 partly as the “return to normal” candidate. The task of the dems is to make normal exciting.
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Howdy Bob!
In that sense the fascist-authoritarian playbook is working as intended. Senators didn’t vote for impeachment because they feared for their lives and the lives of their families.
The problem with the Biden-return-to-normalcy narrative is that we didn’t return to normal. We still have SCOTUS and the state legislatures running amok. We have the GOP blocking any legislative progress. We have wild disinformation and smear campaigns flying around everywhere. We stayed in the same chaotic news-social media loop like we’re in a dystopic ground hog day.
Unfortunately, because of climate change, we will never return to normal, but we need to return to some kind of equilibrium where we have some sense of balance and the possibility of moving forward and achieving something.
Again, the fascist-authoritarian playbook is working just as it says it will.
Huzzah!
Jack
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It is a tried and true playbook, but not without flaws that can be exploited.
I’m often remembering a quote from Ashleigh Brilliant that normal times are over forever. With climate change, that is clearly true, at least on the timescale of human social systems.
And speaking of that fascist playbook, here’s some observation of it: https://www.salon.com/2024/03/01/project-2025-is-more-than-a-playbook-for-trumpism-its-the-christian-nationalist-manifesto/
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Howdy Bob!
These folks really do believe that they are right so everything is justified in pursuit of their right way of living. It seems to me that it isn’t too different from the Puritans.
Unfortunately, climate change and accompanying disasters will only aide the implementation of authoritarianism because it will keep everyone distressed and uncertain of how to proceed. We will be more vulnerable to the lies and manipulation and more desperate to be told what to do to make our futures “safe.”
Huzzah!
Jack
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The religious believers in the end times prophesies and Second Coming tend to regard climate change, if they recognize it at all, as signs of the End and all the more reason to impose their “purity” on the world.
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Insert the quote concerning the irrationality and stubborn belief of the true believer here. One of the problems is that they are all more connected now than they ever have been because of travel and the Internet.
Jack
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Also, there’s the money to be made off them, the combination of mega-churches (MAGA-churches?), and the marketing of books, TV, movies, and digital media, a whole End Times industry.
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Did you quote L. Ron Hubbard the other day? If you want to get rich, you start a religion. It’s been going on since human kind started worshipping, I suppose. You can buy salvation just like you can buy anything else. It just stands to reason, right?
Jack
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No, I didn’t quote L. Ron, but it would be appropriate since he actually went and did it. Then too, I recall that one of the top things that Martin Luther complained of was the selling of indulgences, getting people to pay for something they would not receive until after they died.
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The question then is, did Martin Luther believe the purchased indulgences would work, meaning, did he think they would absolve the purchaser of sins or was he just against long-term investment?
Jack
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LOL Given the theology he developed, I think he doubted the efficacy because he considered the morals of the sellers suspect and corrupt.
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Yeah, Martin Luther was pretty righteous.
Jack
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Well, it is a choice, though. We just have to do what we can to help as many as possible make the good choice. Agreed, it’d be better to have good choices, with one being somewhat better than the other, but the other not being harmful. That ship sailed with the Reagan election, I’m afraid. I bet someone could point to when it sailed before that, too, but it’s late. It’s a comment! Thank you for all you do, Jack. Somebody does read this; Bob reads it right away, but I get here eventually! 🌞🖖
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Howdy Ali!
I love all y’all who read the blog regularly. I just like a little deprecating humor based in some very real household dynamics.
We do have a choice. We just don’t see it as a real choice. It is the same choice and the horse race reporting on Trump convinces us that is a normal choice. It is framed as being business as usual, when the real choice is democracy or fascist oligarchy. People are not happy with Biden, but the special, off-, and mid-term elections have all gone to the Democrats even in deeply red states because of the GOP assault on our rights.
The amazing thing to me is that the last Republican president who wasn’t impeachable-indictable was Ike. And the Republicans have had only two presidents of any consequence, Ike and Lincoln. If I had more time, I would do some research on the Whig party, its positions, and its demise for comparison to our current situation with the slow agonizing death of the GOP. I have to wonder, though, if it ever was a real party?
Huzzah!
Jack
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And so, it’s, whichever oarty that can, fool the voters into, believing, that they can, avert a, government shutdown who will win the presidential, elections, and, let’s face it, the face-off will be, between, two, candidates who are, both, demented, with, one whose, stage is, a little bit, ahead of the, other, so, it still does, NOT, look good!
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Biden is not demented.
The Democrats are not trying to fool anyone. They are trying to govern. Our issues with government shutdowns has been ginned up by Republican refusal to govern and follow democratic norms. The choice is really clear and simple. Go with the Democrats if you want to live, to paraphrase The Terminator.
Jack
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