Pushing Toward a Mental Breaking Point

A critical level. These past few weeks have been crucial to our survival. The governors and medical experts say these weeks will rock the nation to its core in terms of people dying from this virus. But I also feel we’re near a mental breaking point, too.

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This pandemic brings out everything, for better or worse.

There’s the cute stuff, seeing wild animals exploring the now near-abandoned cities. There’s the stupid stuff, like the spring break beach parties in Florida. And then there are the implications of this government’s problems.

I wish we did better as a nation before this pandemic came along.

So, we haven’t had a school shooting this month for the first time since 2002. That’s wonderful, but why was that so hard before?

Why did it take a pandemic to accomplish this?! These and other problems could’ve been fixed way before this point.

Earth’s trying to tell us something. Earth’s trying to wake us up. If only our president and everyone else in the government is listening.

I tried sitting through our president’s descent into madness the other day. That press conference didn’t start on time (which is already a great sign), yet it lasted two-and-a-half hours. I couldn’t go ten minutes without pausing it and vent through my notetaking.

Trump went on and on about the press being fake and showing his bizarre campaign-style video that mentions six governors saying what a great job he’s doing. That’s already infuriating. If he’s a really good person, he shouldn’t have to show off “the good” he’s doing.

But the worst part: Trump’s not planning to be accountable for any of this fallout.

In fact, he doesn’t want this mess to be his fault. He’s even planning to halt funding to the World Health Organization because of this debacle, even though this mess was his own fault for ignoring repeated warnings.

“If I went [and shut everything down] earlier, I would’ve been criticized for being way too early,” he said in his press briefing.

And I thought, “And being criticized for responding late would’ve been better?! Dude! You dismissed the virus’s threat until too late. Call the press fake all you want, but lives are at stake here!”

Oh, and his cute little travel ban on world travel there? Yeah, the day he mentioned putting that into place, I was in NORWAY.

I got a bunch of frantic calls and texts from my parents around 2 a.m. in Norway, and I found out all about it just four hours later, just after getting up. Unlike Trump, making my parents or anyone I care about panic isn’t something I forget easily.

Not to mention, getting out of there in a hurry was a time and a half. Even when I was having fun in London, I’m still in no mood to let the president off the hook just yet.

If Trump thinks I’m going to forget everything I’ve been through to go home in a hurry, he has another thing coming. Big time.

No matter how many good deeds he claims “to have done,” it won’t stop me from flipping the bird at Chicago’s Trump tower (or any other building with his name on it, really). Then again, that would be too easy.

It’s easier to hate President Trump, at least for me, right now.

I’m never going to forgive him. Ever.

Trump’s pandemic handling is just the tip of the iceberg. He’s done many disgusting, inhumane, disrespectful, and criminal actions for the past four years. And he’s done this without any sincere apology or noticeable regret for any of it. He hates accountability and will do anything to weasel out of any sort of responsibility.

It’ll take more than money to earn my forgiveness, Trump. Even as I’m safely back in this country, come November or whenever our presidential election will be, I’ll never forget these past few weeks, nay, these past few years. I want to solve this problem for good. I’ll make sure my voice is heard.

And I hope our country can finally turn a corner toward a better future. It’s about time we did anyway.