Open for reader comments.
January 7, 2023
I am sending a short newsletter this weekend for the purpose of opening the Comments section to all readers in the Today’s Edition community.
There is much to discuss this weekend, but readers hear from me every day. I encourage readers to share their thoughts on the second anniversary of the January 6th insurrection. How did you feel on that fateful day? How have your views shifted over the last two years? How have the events of the last week affected your outlook? What are your hopes? Your fears?
To the extent that you can genuinely do so, I urge you to explain why you remain hopeful about our nation’s future. In a media landscape where editors believe that a negative narrative maximizes revenue, adding balance is healthy and realistic. If you feel differently, that is understandable. Sharing those feelings can also be healthy and realistic.
As always, please be respectful. Use the “like” button to commend worthy comments to other readers. To enhance the readability of lengthy comments, please use paragraph breaks.
I am writing this edition of the newsletter as the House takes its fifteenth vote for Speaker. It appears (emphasis on appears) that Kevin McCarthy will finally obtain a majority of the votes and be elected Speaker. To gain that victory, McCarthy effectively agreed that the US will default on its debt and impose massive cuts on Medicare and Social Security. In other words, Kevin McCarthy sold out tens of millions of Americans and agreed to wreck the full faith and credit of the United States to become Speaker. There has never been a more corrupt bargain in the history of our nation. Much more about that bargain in the days to come.
I am blessed to be part of this community. You sustain me and give me hope during challenging times. I look forward with optimism and determination to the work of the next two years.
I will talk to you on Monday!
I think after reading the many emails here about being frightened and discouraged, that this might be a time for taking the "big picture" view of our politics that a few others suggested.
We might also recognize that some of this trauma may be due to post traumatic stress disorder from the years trump was president, that are being triggered by Kevin McCarthy's Circus settling in to what was Nancy's House.
We were all shocked when a dangerous, malignant narcissist blowhard with no qualifications to be president ended up in the White House. Those were really difficult and frightening years. Yet many people stood up and fought against him in many different ways from all over this country. And we managed to remove him and his flying monkeys from the White House, elect one of the greatest presidents America has seen and patch many of the holes trump made in the fabric of our country and in our relationships with our allies. We hoped for that, but I don't recall anyone predicting that it would definitely happen. There was a lot of fretting and nail biting. We should take strength from that success.
Now many of us have PTSD from the first act of Kevin's Circus, The Clown Show, that just ended in the House of Representatives. It is reminiscent of The trump Show. But we've been through this situation before and we know how to handle it. We need to stop inundating our nervous systems by listening to constant reporting about the same problems from different sources every day. We should try and remember the heroic job that patriotic Americans from all around the country did to protect our democracy from trump, from his immoral followers and from the shocking attack on our Capital. I would have felt a lot better during the four years of the "trump disintegration" if I'd known how successfully Americans would fight back at these unimaginable horrors and "right the ship of state." We have no guarantee, but we need to believe we can do it again instead of sinking into despair, which is easy to do.
I'm not minimizing what we are facing. We're all sick of having to fight the ugly underbelly of our country. But we don't need to tackle the next few years all at once. And we really have no idea what trememdous things we and our fellow defenders of democracy will be able to achieve to counter this current set of dangers. We need to take it one day at a time.
We also need to protect our nervous systems from the overwhelming barrage of dung that will be flung from the monkeys in Kevin's Circus. They will lie constantly. They always do. Expect it. They will accuse us of doing the bad things they are doing. They've done that for years. Expect it. They will smugly claim to be defending democracy. They're only fooling the MAGA crowd with that ridiculous line. Expect it. Don't let the Insurrectionist Circus, soon to be choreographed by the bellowing bully and expert liar who let student athletes in his charge be sexually molested and refused to help them, get under your skin with their stream of lies, gaslighting, lack of morals and lack of concern for their fellow citizens. Yes, it's disgusting how low the insurrectionists will go. But it's nothing new. Expect it.
We fought back against them once. We can do it again, step by step. Be kind to yourself and try to do things for at least a short while every day that will bring you joy.
Wishing you peace. Long live our democracy!
Dear community, I wanted to ask for your prayers/thoughts/wishes/visionings, whatever you call the way we can connect with the non-physical energy of love that sustains us during tough times. I've joined my family in Manhattan for a time because my youngest sister is in the hospital with some pretty awful symptoms of the recurrence of cancer. I'm not quite able to get to sleep tonight so I'm grateful to be here. I've also suspended my daily sharing of Robert's newsletter for this time, though I hope to check in sometimes.
I've heard people say that social media communities are not as real as in person groups, but I have been quite comforted by being able to check in to my few communities . Thanks and blessings to you.