2026- Yikes!

2026! Coming right up!

What are your hopes? Dreams?

The beginning of 2025 brought us the beginning of the trump admin horrors. ICE. Immigrants being snatched off the streets and sent to places like El Salvatore, Alligator Alcatraz, & other hellholes. The cancellation of cancer research, the cutting off of health care for millions of Americans, the cost of living surging, the bombing of Venezuelan boats. & then there’s the Epstein files.

In just a year, Trump has exposed the weaknesses in the constitution, surrounded himself with sycophants who just bow or ignore his insanity, and has revealed just how corrupt the conservative supreme court is. Billionaires come to him with gifts, he tears down the East wing of the White House, threatens to pull the licenses of broadcasting channels that criticize him, gets comedians fired…. And put his name on the Kennedy Center…

Then there is RFK, the secretary of health and human services, a total scam job. He’s not a physician, has no medical background, and is an avid anti-vaxxer and conspiracy nut. He has canceled childhood vaccines, disbanded the CDC and basically pushes snake oil for everything. As a physician I know said, “It’s tragic that Americans can no longer trust anything the CDC says.”

Then there’s Kash Patel, Kristi Noem the dog killer, and JD Vance, and…well, every  list is LONG.

So, my hope for 2026? That the trump nightmare ends. Orange man disappears – impeachment, incarceration, incapacity, death or, better yet, the aliens whisk him away to Pluto. But as one friend quipped, “The aliens and Pluto don’t want him.”

The problem is that even when trump is gone, the damage he has wreaked in this country and abroad may take decades to heal if it heals at all. Worldwide, there seems to be a hunger for authoritarian rule. But what’s the appeal? Do this many people on the planet need a strong daddy figure? & if that’s the case, how can trump or Putin or any of the despots trump allegedly admires be construed as strong?

First and foremost, these guys are bullies, no different than the proverbial kid on the playground who threw a tantrum when you made more baskets then he did. They are mysogynists, racists, sexists of the worst kind, and they see the world as theirs to conquer and control. If you aren’t white, male and straight, you are nothing in their eyes.

Obviously, I could go on and on. But to those of you who voted for trump, especially if you’re a woman, I hope that after a year of his destruction, his inhumanity and cruelty, you see through orange man’s facade. He’s a terrible baby, a dangerous kid, vengeful, insidious.

The concepts of democracy are powerful ideals and they work best through WE THE PEOPLE…not through I AM KING or I AM THE BOSS OF YOU WHO INSISTS YOU DO WHAT I SAY OR ELSE…

So my greatest hope for 2026 is that these protests against this orange monster increase by the millions and that WE THE PEOPLE reclaim our country, our democracy where all men – and women! – really are created equal.