P.T.S.D.

Somebody tweeted yesterday that many of us are suffering from Post-Trump Stress Disorder, which is funny but it's also true. We were traumatized from the moment of the "biggest inauguration crowd ever" to the Bannon pardon. It never let up. Think about it. It was literally every single day for four years. So much gaslighting. So much damage to our institutions. So much damage to the world. We watched it. We cared about it. We were injured by it.

It's going to take a while to recover from that. But the first step, I think, is to acknowledge how badly we're damaged, and admit that we're not the same as we were before.

And when you look at the news, it seems like the abuse is ongoing. The Republican senators are mostly behaving like the same jerks they were all along. Cruz, Graham, McConnell, Rubio – they're strutting aroud bragging about how they're going to block everything again. It hurts to look at them.

People are talking about throwing out the filibuster, whereby you need 60 votes in the Senate to get anything done other than judicial appointments. I'd be all for getting rid of that rule, but even if that's not possible, here are some things that are:

1. We will get our judges confirmed. All of them, any time there's a vacancy. Justice Steve Breyer, good man that you are, you have hung in there like a hero, but your clock is ticking. The same message needs to be delivered to many other progressive, gray-haired federal judges. You folks have a year and a half, and we're counting down.

2. Every now and then, there is "budget reconciliation," when, like magic, the filibuster rule doesn't apply. It's how Donnie, Mitch, and the boys rammed through their Top Secret Tax Cuts® in December 2017. Every time "reconciliation" comes up, the Democrats had better carpe the diem and get stuff done. Especially fixing the tax laws applicable to the top 1 percent. Health care would another good one.

Now, I know, there are a few DINO senators, like Manchin and Tester, who are going to block things. They can throw their weight around if they want, but at this point, they're on the hot seat politically no matter what they do. Their states are borderline red states, and their voters are going to see a lot of changes under Biden. If they don't like those changes, the voters will take it out on the DINOs. Just ask Heidi Heitkamp. 

But if those voters do begrudgingly like how it turned out, the DINOs will have probably their only chance of staying in office. "I blocked Biden's agenda" isn't going to cut it. Rather than being blisters on the heel of progress, those dudes should throw in with the President. His spectacular success is their only hope.

Anyway, brood a little about PTSD. If you're like me, you have it. Be kind to yourself, and acknowledge it. I'm serious.