Month: September 2020

In the book, Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of the Truth by Brian Stelter, the author writes about an on-air conversation between Hannity and Trump on March 4, 2020.

Hannity asks Trump about preparing for the coming pandemic and possible shut down. Trump deflects and says there are just a few cases and we’ll try to keep it that way. Hannity did not challenge the response! (Hannity is a self-proclaimed talk show host and not a journalist, so he can keep himself from being held accountable to journalistic standards and he probably doesn’t even know what the standards are).

As this conversation was taking place, Fox News was preparing for the pandemic by canceling in-person gatherings, sanitizing the offices, installing hand sanitizing stations and setting up at home studios for their news shows hosts. At the same time, Fox News Hosts were accusing mainstream media of over reacting and Jeanine Pirro was saying it’s not that bad while broadcasting from a remote office built inside a truck.

Fox News fears losing its viewers if it challenges or says anything negative about Trump, even at the expense of the truth and hundreds of thousands of lives. They protected themselves and left their faithful viewers in the dark and in danger.

Who will protect justice, human rights and equality now? Justice Ginsburg was a force of change for the last 50 years that made life in America better for all. The mourning of her death is made worse by the knowledge that there are some who want to replace her with a Justice who will undo the progress she has made. We are in a state of uncertainty. There are only 45 days until the general election. The next president should make the next pick to reflect the current will of the people. We do not know what will happen!

The Fox News message of resentment, displacement, and humiliation has radicalized many older conservatives. They hold all other news sources as fake, have embraced conspiracy theories and showed up armed at protests and even in a courthouse. The Fox multimillionaire talk show hosts can only tell their viewers what their viewers want to hear or risk losing their cash cow. The truth is sacrificed and journalistic standards are non-existent. A dangerous feedback loop is running un-reined. The victim is our democracy!

Republican conservatives no longer believe that democracy works for them because the majority of Americans are Democrats making it very difficult for them to win fair elections. As a result, they’ve been engaging in voter suppression activities that often make it difficult for mostly Democratic minorities and lower income citizens to vote.

Conservatives can no longer maintain the way they think American life should be whether working, middle or upper class, non college or college educated. They want to maintain a white, Christian, male dominated order to American society. Since our multicultural, democratic process cannot support their vision of what they think America “should” be, they are willing to tear down American institutions and throw away democratic ideals to the point of supporting an incompetent, corrupt autocrat!

Many wrap themselves in American flags believing they are unfailing American patriots as they embrace the lies that are destroying America from within. They are engaging in anti-American sedition!

We need to accept our diversity as it is, work together and engage in productive discussion and compromise. We are the greatest country in the world because of our diversity and of our (I hope not past) insistence on human rights in the world. But, a third of our population is living in an alternative reality that is becoming more radicalized as evidenced by the conspiracy theory internet platform, QAnon, showing up in mainstream media. All we can do is vote, to vote for truth!

As a special education teacher I was trained to teach students with a wide variety of disabilities including those classified as Socially Maladjusted (SM), Emotionally Disturbed (ED), and Behaviorally Disordered (BD).

A quick Google search produced the following definitions:

A social maladjustment is a persistent pattern of violating societal norms, such as multiple acts of truancy, or substance or sex abuse, and is marked by struggle with authority, low frustration threshold, impulsivity, or manipulative behaviors.

Emotional disturbance means a condition exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time and to a marked degree that adversely affects a child’s educational performance: (A) An inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors.

An emotional and behavioral disorder is an emotional disability characterized by the following: (i) An inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and/or teachers.

Often students who exhibit these disruptive behaviors are placed in self-contained special education classrooms with 12 or fewer students in order to provide lessons in appropriate social skills, coping skills for the self-regulation of socially unacceptable behaviors and academics.

Many times students who end up in these classes have an underlying learning disability or may live in an impoverished or unstable household while some come from wealth and privilege. The bottom line is that their behavior in regular education is so disruptive that it interferes with their learning and the learning of their classmates.

Sadly, impeached President Trump exhibits characteristics from ALL three classifications. He consistently and intentionally violates societal norms, has been implicated in many instances of sex abuse, has outright contempt for authority, a documented low frustration threshold, and engages in impulsive and manipulative behavior daily. He also publicly exhibits the characteristics of someone diagnosed with Malignant Narcissistic Personality Disorder as noted by many mental health professionals. And Finally, he has the inability to build and maintain relationships as is evident by three marriages and reports that he has no real friends.

As President, instead of inspiring others who feel as though they don’t fit in to normal or polite society to become their best possible selves, he celebrates and encourages their antisocial behavior which is dangerously destructive to our democracy which requires civil discourse and cooperation to function in a healthy and fair manner.

One SM/ED/BD student in a regular Ed classroom can totally derail the educational and social progress of the entire class! Our SM/ED/BD President is derailing the ENTIRE country!!!

Trump didn’t get the help he needed when he was a student. When his disruptive classroom behavior became intolerable at the age of 13, he was sent away by his family to military school which did nothing for his apparent underlying behavioral disorders. Today, students with these classifications are given the tools they need to navigate and succeed in the world of expected social norms.

Often, a new or inexperienced teacher will lose control of the entire classroom to just one acting out student, causing total chaos and a thoroughly unproductive environment in which nothing good can happen.

We have a President who is completely unsuitable for and incapable of performing the job. We have an already-wealthy president who would have a triple classification in an IEP and gave him the tremendous power that goes with being President of the United States. What a recipe for disaster! Socially maladjusted, emotionally disturbed and behaviorally disordered! And his niece Mary suspects an undiagnosed learning disability! Four more years? OMG!!! Don’t let it happen! Vote!!!