I planned to write another cooking post today to avoid resuming my rant about the recent election.
Sorry. Change of plans.
The world has gone stark raving crazy. Donald Trump–of all people–was elected president of the United States. What kind of alternate reality is that? Donald Trump, the scum who made fun of a disabled reporter? The guy who stiffed so many of his workers, and then convinced the lower class he’d save them from poverty? The TV star caught on video boasting about how being famous meant he could, with impunity, grab women “by the pussy?” (His disgusting words, not mine.)
Yeah, the world’s gone loony-tunes mad.
In fact, people are so pissed off that they’re rioting in the streets. Democrats are protesting Trump’s election, many of them in violent ways. Trump supporters are choking American Muslim women with their hijabs. Kids are chanting, “build the wall” (to keep out the Mexicans). White supremacists are tagging the homes of Jews with swastikas.
I’m furious, too.
Coincidentally, I was right in the middle of writing this blog post when a friend called me. “I just almost broke everything in my house,” she said. Her daughter is suffering from drug addiction, and is now in jail. To make matters worse, my friend has stage IV metastatic breast cancer. She’s been sick for almost three years, had to leave her job and has used up all of her resources. Her medicine, which is one of the few treatment options she has left, costs $12,000 a month. She just found out that Medicare is going to cover only 30% of the cost. She’s had to appeal to the pharmaceutical company to discount her treatment, as they sometimes do for low-income patients. But the company is putting her through the ringer, asking for every kind of documentation imaginable. It just became too much.
“I wanted to take a hammer and smash up the TV,” she said. “I just couldn’t take anymore.”
She apologized for her rant. “Don’t you worry about it for one minute,” I reassured her. “I’d be much more concerned if you were just giving up, if you were out of fight.”
As ugly as it can be, anger is a sure sign that we are still fighting, still passionate, still alive. It’s uniquely human. Anger is a sign that we haven’t capitulated.
Of course, all this anger is taking its toll. I’m scared for us. I’m praying that we can all find peace after this debacle of an election before we kill each other. Maybe we will find a way for all this anger to bring us together to fight what’s ailing this country. I just don’t know.
All I know for sure today is that I’m really fucking angry.