John Pavlovitz writing on the Make America Great Again movement:

These are days that tax people’s already burdened mental defense systems and emotional reserves by relentlessly targeting their places of vulnerability:

the real and manufactured emergencies designed by the former President and his current party,

• the daily incessant legislative attacks on vulnerable people groups,
• the collective cruelty
• the normalized acts of violence the forty-fifth president not only tolerates but > incites
• the untethered behavior regarding matters of national security, environmental stewardship, and human rights.

In other words, the GOP is unwell and lots of good, already hurting people see it clearly. They understand the gravity of these moments for our nation and they are rightly terrified by the lack of accountability, the absence of conscience, and the poverty of empathy.

Men and women already prone to depression and anxiety, those normally driven to despair without any discernible cause or reason—now also have objective data that makes that hopelessness quite sensible.

The MAGA movement is making otherwise mentally healthy people emotionally sick, and making ill people much worse. Like forcing a person suffering from Asthma into an enclosed space and making them exert themselves over and over without rest; surrounding them with every allergen and trigger their illness has—and with great joy, watching them gradually suffocate.

From the moment Donald Trump descended down an escalator at Trump Tower and announced he’s running for President, America has been under assault. It’s not by a nation, insurgents, Antifa, or immigrants. It’s more sinister than that. It has been under assault by the lies, corruptness, outright hostility against science and the total lack of empathy of the Trump led GOP.

To see the direct effects of the MAGA campaign - look know further then the research conclusions of the Covid pandemic. If you were Republican, you were 43% higher chance of dying than Democratic voters. We are seeing daily mass shootings in school, churches, subways, city streets, and grocery stores, by people whose own illnesses and frailties have been triggered by the incendiary language and calculated lies continually perpetuated from the top.

As Pavlovitz writes:

The former President and those who support him in Congress are counting on sick people growing too tired from pushing back, too overwhelmed fighting their inner demons, and too hopeless at the story to go on.

We can’t allow that.

We will not allow that. We all need to carry one another and care for one another. Realize that the GOP has no desire to, and in fact is doing willful damage.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed and need help, here are some resources to help identify and treat mental illness, depression, and mood disorders.