El Idiota’s Positive Thinking

Americans like to believe we’re bending towards justice, but we can no longer tell ourselves that now that we’ve elected Donald (or as my dad calls him, El Payaso) as our president. And those of us who didn’t directly cast a vote for him, still allowed him to be elected. We did this. I’ve heard this many times: “It doesn’t really matter if we have a Republican or Democratic president. American politics never really change.” Does anyone still say that? Does anyone say it who doesn’t use it to hide that they voted for that man and they don’t want to talk about it? Does anyone truly believe that if Clinton had been elected, millions of us would still be terrified of being deported, of losing our health insurance, of losing access to birth control and abortion services, of having a former Breitbart editor as a White House advisor? I think we can finally stop pretending that it doesn’t materially matter if a Democrat or a Republican takes the White House. It matters.

I’ve managed chronic depression for decades and I was going through a bad episode in the weeks before the election on November 8, 2016. Incredibly, my depression broke the day after Trump (or as I call him, El Idiota) was elected and it hasn’t come back. I think I’m currently experiencing what people without mental illness have: a painfully clear-eyed view of just how fucked we all are, without the dulling fog of depression to insulate me from the sharp edges. It’s a different kind of pain, a broader fear, a bigger feeling of hopelessness. In depression, I feel certain that I can’t do anything to improve my life, but now I feel certain I can’t do anything to improve our national situation. Before, it felt like I was trapped inside my mind. Now I feel like I’m trapped inside of life in general, along with everyone else on the planet.

How exquisite to emerge from my lifelong purgatory of mental illness just in time to face the disempowerment and persecution of so much of the population in general. As many times as I’ve longed to be rid of my emotional disorder, I never imagined it feeling like this. Or maybe the world was always like this. Maybe life is just moving through one nightmare after another.

Of the people who voted for El Idiota because he wasn’t a politician, I wonder, “How do you feel about salespeople?” Because, while he’s not a politician, he is a salesperson, using marketing techniques every time he uses words. He repeats things until we believe them, just like companies such as McDonald’s, Coke, General Electric and countless other sellers of things. El Idiota incants phrases like “the failing New York Times” and “fake news” and if we let him, he’ll hypnotize us into believing that we really can’t trust any news except that which comes from his Twitter feed.

Nineteen days ago I had major surgery, so February has been a haze of painkillers, long naps and staggering around my apartment with a walker and then a cane. (If you live far from family, like me, build strong friendships and get to know your neighbors! Without those relationships, I wouldn’t have been able to recuperate as I have been.) Through this haze I’ve begun ingesting some news for the first time since the election. It goes down easier when you’re already on pain-dulling medication. Worse than El Idiota’s executive orders, struggling appointments and information-blocking strategies is his insistence that his White House is running like a fine-tuned machine. I say that’s the worst because those words aren’t El Idiota spinning the facts or trying to pull the wool over our eyes. He truly believes everything is fine in his White House (aside from leaks). He’s secure in his knowledge that he’s doing everything perfectly and there’s nothing to change or improve. He believes this and he’ll repeat it until we believe it, too.

He’s got Congress behind him, focused on those illegal leaks like a driver disabling that annoying oil light. He’s creating the reality he wants. Growing up, El Idiota’s family followed the teachings of people like Norman Vincent Peale who pioneered the phrase “the power of positive thinking.” Peale taught that with the power of thinking, you can change the future, but the current American president has taken this further and believes that with the power of thinking, you can change the past. This president believes that with the power of his thinking, he can make reality whatever he wants it to be. Honestly, I don’t see any reason to think he won’t succeed. Over decades, Madison Avenue has trained Americans to respond to the marketing techniques El Idiota is using. He might very well cause the New York Times to fail. He might very well convince us that we can’t trust any media but what he has personally produced.

I guess the good news is that more people than ever are ready to agitate, resist and take risks to secure our civil rights (if that’s true). But we were already battling to improve American education, immigration policy, voting access, health care and equal rights for all. Now we’re realizing that these battles are going to be twice or ten times as hard as they already have been. Do we have the stamina for that? The optimism? The posterboard?

I believe it’s entirely possible that this will become his America and his world, and I think I prefer my mental illness to his.

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