Author: Matthew Groff

I read Chuck Schumer’s Op-Ed in the Times about how Democrats need to stand strong and delay the new Supreme Court Justice appointment, and it read like trying to rally the people to a lost cause. The Nuclear option is gone, and the Republicans only need 51 votes and they have them. I am also tired of hearing that Collins and Murkowski will come and save us all by blocking the vote. They will be offered something and fold, or the pick will do the “I don’t know how I will rule” dance, which for those two Senators will suffice. In this, I am a pessimist, and we are all screwed.

But there is a mid-term coming. That is what our hope rides on.

I read this Op-Ed on the way into work today; Women Might Save America Yet. As the piece tries to stay optimistic, it had a very telling line in it, “It’s too soon to tell whether America will survive Trump in any recognizable form.” That I think sums up the America we are living in now; Will there be anything left that will resemble to Old Republic?

I do think that this midterm and general election in 2020 is the opportunity to make the changes that need to be made. I think it is pointless for liberals to try and restore a pre-Trump America. I think we have to establish a post-Trump America. There is so much that needs to be changed, and if there is a blue wave, then engage these votes in making a more perfect Union.

There is a heatwave going on in NYC, and if I look at a weather, I think the rest of the country. I hate the heat, and I used to live in Texas, so I know what hot really is. When I bring this up with people, I used to get the “but you have A/C down there.” Which is true, but I used to do outdoor theatre in the Summer, so I know what it feels like to sweat off 5 pounds, and never really feel cool.

But I survived it. Not sure how…

It is the same thing when I think about how when I was a kid growing up down there… I don’t remember drinking water… Clearly, I must have stayed hydrated. I just remember drinking Coke and Kool-Aid. I guess all that sugar did the trick.

And except for when I went to a water park, I never had sunscreen put on me. Lots of sun exposure.

Let’s juxtapose that with how a slather sunscreen my kid when I take her outside on a sunny hot day in New York. I don’t want my kid to get a sunburn, but I also feel a little silly as, though 80 degrees is hot, protecting my kid from something that my parents weren’t concerned about.

Won’t lie, I was pretty upset with the Supreme Court’s ruling on Trump’s Muslim ban. This is all the doing of Mitch McConnell and the hijacking of the appointment that Obama should have had. It makes me nervous for reproductive rights, gay rights, union rights, criminal justice reform, and leads me to believe that this court will support a super strong executive branch, stronger corporations, and weakening of environmental laws.

I look at American history, and I try to see if there is anything good that can come out of this… I have a tiny silver lining…

Of the three branches of government, the Courts are the last to change with the times, and it was designed that way. Think of it this way; Congress is built to almost change every election cycle. The presidency is in the middle, and kind of does a sway between parties every eight years. The court almost takes a generation to change from liberal to conservative, and vice versa.

Context: FDR had to deal with a conservative court that struck down several of his New Deal programs. This angered him so much that he tried to add seats to he could pack it to his advantage, which failed. But FDR started the slow process of getting more progressive and liberals on the court, so when you got to 1953 with the Warren court, more liberal decisions started.

But by the time you got to the end of the Warren Court, 1969, Nixon came and with it the new conservative Republican party. That slowly chipped away until you got to the now Conservative court we have today.

Now, if we are to believe the “Blue Wave” that is coming, and that the Congress is to return to the liberals, then we in the process of getting a liberal court back in 20 years…

I guess that makes me feel better?

I have been watching in slow horror to what the Trump administration has been doing to migrant children. I know he has scapegoated immigrants from the start, but I still find it difficult that anybody over in the White House thought this would be a good idea. Regardless of the reaction, and thank God the decency of Americans came though on this issue, but the mere fact that people thought that harming children was a good idea is horrifying and stomach churning to me.

And if I spend time thinking about it, I was raised to believe that this type of thinking was old, anarchistic, almost comical in the small mindedness of the hate. I grew up, and went to public school in Texas in the 80’s and 90’s, so I’m not talking about an elite liberal coastal education. In a nutshell, my education in American history basically followed this line of logic; America is a great place, because we have this great Constitution, it protects our rights as people, we are all immigrants, diversity is good in the melting pot, and though this country has made some horrible catastrophic mistakes, we always try to fix them to make it a more perfect union for all! USA! USA! USA!

When I see how Trump and his supports are treating immigrants, the first thing that pops into my head is my junior year in high school US History class when we were learning about Chinese Exclusion Act, and how my very diverse classes reaction was, “That’s fucked up,” followed by, “but it will never happen again,” because even to high school students, it was self-evident that laws against immigration are inherently evil and racist, and used to scapegoat.

But here we are…

When I was a kid, I went through this period, I was around the age of 8 or 9, when everything thing gave me anxiety, and I worried about everything in the world going wrong. It was like a smothering blanket would kill any positive thought I could have. It made me feel that I was going to die at any moment, and I would miss out on all the things life would have to offer. It could get so bad at school, that I would break down in tears, and be unable to go to class, or move. It was also difficult to see my friends look at me when these moments arrived, and they couldn’t fathom how to help me feel better. It was one of the first truly self-conscious moments in my life, when I knew I was different from everyone else, and it wasn’t a good different.

My depression was my own, and it was serious, but I am thankful that I was never put on medication. My parents sent me to therapy, and I learned tools to cope, but I have never gotten over it, I am still always dealing with it.

I know what can trigger it, which is when my life begins to enter a transition phase, but not always. If I am prepared for it, looking forward to it, then I can handle it. If the change is thrust upon me, that it starts badly.

The first therapist I went to, his advice has served me to best. He told me that when the fear and anxiety start to build up in me, I should draw or write the worst possible outcome that could happen to me. Then read it back, and write what the second worse outcome. And just keep writing al the outcomes, and see, when I’m done writing, if they were as scary as I thought.

The expression of emotions, the examining of how we think, and what might happen, is what creating art is about. Maybe I would have gone into the arts no matter what, but anxiety and therapy gave me to tools to create.