The Politics of Cancer
The Politics of Cancer
When I found out I have stage 3 prostate cancer my world changed. I saw things much differently almost immediately. When you get that kind of news where the headlines read “ Mortality has arrived, life as you know it has been suspended”, reality takes a 180. Because mortality is not a popular subject and instills fear in many, the dynamic of friends and family change abruptly . Some friends and family you always thought would be there vanish not to be heard from again. Many you would never expect arrive with never ending love, empathy, and compassion. The prospect of death scares the hell out of many, and they just can’t deal with it. Cancer brings that to the forefront . Politics, the kind we are facing today is not so dissimilar. The election of Donald Trump and all that led up to it can be diagnosed as a serious stage of cancer. It’s spreading and yes it’s malignant . The country is dividing like cancer cells do and the effect is fear, anger, and complacency. All three destabilize the senses and they become numb. The response is either anger with no action or complacency taking the form of “ let’s wait and see “. The most important lesson I learned from cancer is you don’t have time to “wait and see” and anger fuels the hungry beast within. To the majority of Americans Trump has instilled fear and anger, a leader he is not. Trump responds to criticism with retribution. To him it’s a simple way of dealing with anyone who disagrees with him. He speaks directly to his over 17 million twitter followers. He calls journalists “disgusting” and “scum”, Union leaders after calling Trumps claims he saved 1000 jobs a lie were labeled the “cause of all the jobs leaving America.” Soon after many of his Tweets, death threats came to those that were bold enough to challenge him. When a challenge to the election count came he declared he “won by millions of votes”, an unsubstantiated lie. His actions thus far are the antithesis of Democracy and should give everyone pause, that this man and what he stands for, brings us to … “ Life as we know it, has been suspended “