Roxanne Tellier – Post Trump Traumatic Stress Disorder

Eleven days post the Biden Inauguration, and I’m still on a high. It’s not about Joe Biden per se, nor even the wonder of the first black, South Asian-American female vice-president in history in the form of Kamala Harris. It’s not even about the days starting to get a little longer, with the sun coming up a little earlier every day.

No, it’s so much more than that.

This high started when trump was unceremoniously and ignominiously booted off Twitter on January 8^th, two days after the riot of January 6^th.

“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence…

Our public interest framework exists to enable the public to hear from elected officials and world leaders directly. It is built on a principle that the people have a right to hold power to account in the open.

However, we made it clear going back years that these accounts are not above our rules entirely and cannot use Twitter to incite violence, among other things. We will continue to be transparent around our policies and their enforcement. “   Twitter Inc.

It was astounding how quickly the temperature of social unrest dropped. Within hours, the silence was deafening. And oh, so very, very welcome, after more than four years of increasingly manic, psychotic, delusional and authoritarian tweets designed to condition his cult followers into demanding trump’s elevation to dictator of the nation.

Still, so many of us waited with held breath, unable to believe that the nation had actually escaped the hostage situation it had been held in since January 20^th 2017.

Post Trump Traumatic Stress Disorder. It’s a thing. For the last four years, America and those who watch her, have been gripped in the paw of a giant, insatiable ego of a man-child, whose gift of creating constant chaos prevented any agency, whistleblower, or potential traffic cop from stopping his reign of error and terror.

Every day was an exercise in a retreat from decades of progress in civil rights, and an assault on how best to suppress votes, allow nauseating police misconduct, defy hard won protections against discrimination against minorities, and to strip from citizens what was left of their health care and social safety net.

We watched social and mass media, along with trump’s administration, and his devoted base, indulge in a shared psychosis, where the ability to perceive right from wrong became moot, and the only alternative to a trump defence was to confess to a castrating admission of being wrong.

Those who cried out for justice received none. There was no cavalry coming to save the day.

And so, like the victims of domestic abusers, we happily anticipated the Inauguration and its beautiful and touching celebrations, while we also feared and dreaded what might occur, based on the wrath of trump’s delusional supporters.

That is actually what his followers believed, and still wish to happen, even as January changes to February.

“Social media users have been sharing posts that make various claims related to the QAnon conspiracy theory, including that Martial Law and the Insurrection Act have been invoked; power has been transferred from outgoing President Trump to the military, not President Joe Biden; there have been mass arrests; Biden is not President; and Trump will come back to power on March 4th. There is no evidence to support any of these claims, linked to the widely debunked QAnon conspiracy theory.” January 22, 2021, Reuters.com

Like hostage victims, like prisoners in war camps, like those who tremble under horrific domestic abuse, Americans have been made fearful and emotionally damaged by the abuse of trump’s followers.

Trumpism is a death cult. Trumpists are willing to die for him, be it by failure to protect themselves against the disease he proclaimed a ‘hoax,’ or in interactions with authorities. Trumpists are willing to kill, whether it be anyone on social media or in real life who disagrees with their contentions, or to storm the Capitol in order to hang Vice-President Pence for failing to block the vote certifying Biden’s electoral win, or, as in the case of one man’s fantasy, to “put a bullet in Nancy Pelosi’s noggin on live TV.”   All to keep trump in power.

The images we saw of the insurrectionists storming, sacking, defiling, and searching for elected representatives that they wanted to murder, were disturbing, to put it mildly. As the days go by, and we are privy to more information that confirms that the attack was, in fact, plotted and planned in advance, it’s only natural that Americans, and those that care about the nation and it’s people, are suffering from a PTTSD similar to what any person who served in a war zone might experience. We are in recovery.

Under the circumstances, it shouldn’t be surprising that many people continue to look over their shoulders, unable to believe that the Trump Error is really over; we’re dealing with collective mourning.

After four years of watching America’s democratic framework be worked over like Fury pummelled Wilder, it’s no surprise that many continue to feel unsafe and vulnerable. Trump’s behavior towards the American people looks very much like that of a domestic abuser. He was further abetted in his sadistic efforts by the people he chose to head up important cabinets controlling the nation’s emergency and safety nets. These machinations left no escape route for those most damaged by his decisions.

Even before the horrendous incompetence the trump admin showed in handling COVID-19, which has led to over 440,000 American deaths in less than one year, research was showing a large increase in emotional and mental health problems that were brought about, or exacerbated, by trump’s time in office.

Contrary to the presidential oath of office, trump never cared about, or intended, to protect the safety, health or well -being of the nation he’d been elected to lead. Leading, in fact, was not why he’d sought out the position; it was always intended to simply raise the profile of the Trump brand.

So the four years of trumpocracy somehow managed to encompass racism, misogyny, a very public embrace of white supremacy, an increase in domestic terrorism, a disastrous trade war that led to a flailing economy, and was topped off by, arguably, sabotage and willful negligence in the handling of the pandemic – a de facto crime against humanity – and an attempt to overthrow the votes of millions of black and brown Americans.

“Donald Trump is the most successful bio-terrorist in human history. This is not an accident.” John Gartner, Psychologist and former Johns Hopkins professor

From 2015, when trump began his run for the presidency, until January 8^th, 2021, when Twitter finally silenced his nonstop IV drip of ugliness and bile, trump and his regime emotionally and psychically abused the American people, whether they were in the minorities he systematically targeted, the people he’d elevated in his party, or his slavishly devoted base.

It will fall to Biden, Harris, their team, and the Congress to attempt to salve the emotional wounds of the trump error. For the good of the nation, this PTTSD needs to be treated immediately.

History has shown that a failed coup, a failed attempt to overthrow and take over governments, must never be ignored, or treated as anything but what it clearly is – an attempt to force the will of one group of unelected malcontents, over the wishes of those who voted for the leaders of the party currently in power.

Allowing seditionists and traitors to continue to spread false information amongst their supporters cannot be tolerated. Those that contend that trump had a victory stolen from him are provably wrong. Even as the Republican party tears itself apart, in a deathmatch struggle over whether their allegiance is to trump or to the nation, it’s elected representatives must either accept that Biden holds the legitimate power in their constitutional democracy, and spread that message to their base, or they must leave their posts. Their personal beliefs cannot be allowed to poison the ‘one nation, indivisible’ to which they pledged their oaths at the start of their elected terms.

History has shown us that the failure of President Andrew Johnson, who assumed the presidency after President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, to hold Confederate traitors to task for insurrection, and who instead allowed those who had ‘engaged in insurrection against,’ or gave ‘aid or comfort to the enemies’ of the United States to hold public office, is a mistake that resonated in America to this very day.

The first insurrection attempt by Hitler and his followers, in the 1923 Beer Hall Pusch, was a failure. But the second one was successful, as his followers had learned from their previous defeat.

George Santayana is credited with the famous quote, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

“History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes,” said Mark Twain

America is at a crossroads. Will she choose the ‘red pill’ of reality, of life-changing truth, or remain in blissful ignorance, lulled into the comforting ignorance of the ‘blue pill’ of Trumpism?

I believe that it will take gut-wrenching courage on the part of the Biden administration, backed by their justice departments, to use the Fourteenth Amendment, Section Three, that carries the penalty of barring from holding public office anyone who took an oath to support the Constitution, and then ‘engaged in insurrection against,” or “gave aid or comfort to the enemies” of the United States, upon those in current or past office who had any role in instigating the attack on the Capitol of January 6^th.

Furthermore, I believe that anyone arrested for their part in the attack be subject to the executive order trump himself signed into being on June of 2020, which he intended to use against sanctuary cities, and Black Lives Matter protestors, which directed the Department of Justice to “prosecute to the fullest extent permitted under Federal Law” people who damage government monuments, participate in “efforts to incite violence,” or damage religious property, with a punishment of up to 10 years in prison for the damaging of federal property.

As harsh as these measures may seem, they are necessary to prevent a future America in which trump flags, murals, statues, and re-enactments of the January 6^th attack celebrate his presidency and its denouement, rather than censure his lies and incitement. That would be the America that DOESN’T prosecute trump, and all of his violent, and criminal followers.

An America that prosecutes, fines, and jails those that attempted to overturn the results of a fair and legal election would be taking the first and most important step in healing the nation, and all of those suffering from Post Trump Traumatic Stress Disorder.

=RT=

Roxanne’s column appears here every Sunday 

Roxanne Tellier has been singing since she was 10 months old … no, really. Not like she’s telling anyone else how to live their lives, because she’s not judgmental, and most 10 month olds need a little more time to figure out how to hold a microphone. She has also been a vocalist with many acts, including Tangents, Lady, Performer, Mambo Jimi, and Delta Tango. In 2013 she co-hosted Bob Segarini’s podcast, The Bobcast, and, along with Bobert, will continue to seek out and destroy the people who cancelled ‘Bunheads’.