It is Time for A Change

The events over the past several months have anxiety levels over the top for almost everyone.  The past year has been an emotional roller coaster for virtually every one of us.  In my recent blogs about caregiving, I have focused on various ways to ensure we stay connected to each other and grounded during the pandemic.  In my book, One Caregiver’s Journey, I am diligent to remind the need to look for balance.

In early 2020 the US economy was bustling, businesses were thriving, people were spending, unemployment was at 3%.  Donald Trump took the credit for the good times and it bolstered his powerful ego.  His supporters crowed daily like the rooster at dawn.  Nobody cared that much of the information we were digesting was only partially accurate because life was good, and he was at the top of our government structure.

Today it is time for a change and Donald Trump must go.  The past few months have been laden with turmoil, lies, unrest and a lack of leadership.  I am not going to go into the racial unrest of the summer, or the constant barrage of insults leveled at females.  Once Covid-19 became a pandemic Trump brushed the recommendations of the medical community aside, leaving the World Health Organization and gutting the FDA and CDC.  He did set up a Covid team that rarely met.  He abdicated leadership and threw the management of the surging virus to 50 different state governors with 50 different programs.    His assertion that it was going to disappear and dissipate to zero cases never manifested itself.  Instead, we are nearing a half million deaths and more than 25million cases have been identified.  Operation Warpspeed did produce a vaccine quickly but the rollout has been disconnected and slow with lies and miscommunication.  He refuses to wear a mask as do most of his ardent supporters.  Will enough people get the vaccine to offset the anti-vaxxer movement?  Your senses are numbed at the visions of semi-trailers filled with bodies parked outside hospitals.  This has been an epic failure in leadership that has resulted in more than 20 million Americans filing for unemployment, many businesses have been forced to closed, millions of people are in food lines with no money to pay rent or mortgages and the education of our children has suffered.  Economic relief proposals were stymied by partisan politics for months.

It doesn’t matter whether your political affiliation is an R, D or I, Donald Trump cannot remain in the White House.   He turned his back on the entire Covid-19 pandemic and ensuing economic failure.  Big on talk about getting the economy growing again and kids back in school, he did nothing.  His supporters who tried to open various state economies were soon seeing surging virus cases.   He lost the election, it was not stolen, it was not rigged and over 65 court cases, including two to the Supreme Court have said the assertions were unproven with facts.  He allowed, without any condemnation, the Russians to hack into national security computer systems within both government and private industry.  But the icing on the cake is that he told rioters on January “6^th to go to the Capitol and fight like hell.”  Six people were killed, the Capitol was ransacked and vandalized and the rioters were going to kill the Vice President and other Congressional leaders.  Those who have been arrested for crimes have defended their actions by saying “my President told me to do it.”  The event was a tragedy and the image Donald Trump standing at the podium with a clenched gloved fist was seen worldwide.  He disgraced himself and the USA.  There is no plausible excuse for the situation the grandest country in the world finds itself.  It is time for a change in leadership.

All of this turmoil takes a toll on each of us in a different way.  It is important to recognize the need to care for ourselves and our loved ones and not get caught up in the news cycles which change a hundred times a day.    It is time for a change because we cannot continue down this path of uncertainty.  The leadership that many relied on for four years has lost focus for the good of the country.   We can get past the challenges of our time with new leadership if we give it a chance.