By Dr. Kathie Mathis, Psy.D
President Trump says he is making America great again but that is far from the truth. As much as we don’t want to admit it – he is the norm for what America is and that certainly isn’t great. He is a White man, admittedly a “pussy grabbing” entitled man, misogynist, ego frigid, malignant narcissistic, chronic lying, leader. I know this might seem harsh, but the evidence of this behavior and the American indifference to it, is overwhelming. This President can say and do anything he wants and no one does anything to remove him. So this undesirable and non-empathetic leader who represents the American people continues to drag our country down instead of raising it up and “making it great” as he boasts.
Life expectancy in America declined in 2017 for the third year in a row. That hasn’t happened in this country in nearly a century and runs counter to the long-term global trend of increasingly higher life expectancy. Has the Trump administration or Congress mobilized resources and national attention in order to deal with this public health crisis? Not at all.
In 2017, more than 70,000 Americans died of a drug overdose The federal response was tepid legislation passed last year that doesn’t significantly increase federal spending to deal with this crisis and largely short-changes addiction treatment. This administration doesn’t care about the abuse of women and children either. It has put children in cages; separated them from their parents, adding to child abuse. It has tried to dismantle Violence Against Women Act and reduced money for services to victims of abuse who are mostly women. This President is not only an admitted “pussy grabber” but also misogynistic and views women and children as objects instead of human beings. He has not done one thing to empower and elevate American women and children but takes away healthcare opportunities, raises taxes for the poor and reduces taxes for the rich and we can go on and on. Our country is in the top five countries for human trafficking yet he points fingers at other countries as being a problem when we are the problem. He takes no responsibility on changing this fa
The year 2017 was also the worst for gun violence in America since 1968 — with nearly 40,000 deaths. A country that “values life” would be looking for ways to lessen this carnage, but that hasn’t happened either. He lies about needing a “Wall” to keep out illegal aliens and to stop the drug and human trafficking problem. Sad truth is that most drugs and traffickers don’t walk across our borders. They fly in, drive in or use boats/ships to bring drugs and human slaves into our country. But he doesn’t tell the truth on anything except this -“there is no one like me” – which he not only states over and over, but shows us daily to be true in a negative way – not in a way our country needs him to be – ethical and honorable. He hires criminals to help him run our country and put a woman in charge of our education system who makes our education system one of the worst in the world.
The pattern of negative leadership that Trump has shown our country seeps into every area of politics and living in the United States. Hate crimes are up. Fear has increased across the nation. His lack of leadership and truth standards is low and yet his followers collude with him and his lies. This is an unfortunate fact based on evidence and hypocrisy tweeted and behaviorally demonstrated during his reign of horror for our country.
The sad reality is that while this administration is awful when it comes to prioritizing life. It is consistent with a decades-long tend of “raising” our quality of life and standards of living. it also runs counter to the actions of most other countries around the world, the majority of which make a priority out of improving the lives of their fellow citizens. Unfortunately, Trump is correct that the United States is unique, just not in way that makes us the “greatest country on the face of this earth.” The Face of Our Nation is currently an emoji of sadness and anger. My private practice in anger management services and trauma recovery services has increased in the past year more than in my 30 years of experience in part because of what is happening in our country.
So what do we do about it? Vote!!! Vote this man out of office and bring in someone with real solutions for making our country once again have pride in its leadership and national status in the world. Vote politicians into office who have a higher standard, who won’t collude with a President with mental health issues. Let us use the power we have as a voting body to never again make the mistakes of this Presidency, and bring into our nations fiber honesty, integrity, humility, empathy and equality.. Vote for change!!!
