I’m sorry to say it, but I have to.
It had to get this bad.
Because this is what happens when mind control goes mainstream — when it seeps into our work, our play and our infrastructure — the laundromats, the buses, churches and city streets. This is what happens when mind control takes over the kitchen table and bedrooms of tens of millions of people.
Yes, the orange haired #@$!# did it. He is the one every finger can point at.
Since he put himself there, as cult leader in chief, he had to do it. Can we put a child in a candy store and expect them to not eat candy? He pulled out his cult leaders handbook and employed every single technique. It made him giddy. He’d had decades of practice before he finally stood on the highest platform and saw how the people responded when he sent little birdies out. It was so easy. He was a natural. Taking out his red crayon, he drew a circle around him and asked, “Are you with me or against me?”
“THEY are the problem.” He pointed, “In fact,” his voice drops to a whisper, “they are evil.”
A gasp draws them closer.
“YOU my friends, you get it. YOU are so smart. Just listen to this…” Secrets spill in darkened alleys, and down highways in broad daylight.
Jump he said.
How high? They asked.
Mind control captures the whole person through emotional jockeying, intellectual gobbledy-gook that makes you feel very, very smart, and through blood. You’ve got to have skin in the game. You have to be willing to give up your first born, which only makes sense, if you really think about it because, “Look,” he says, “you have so much to gain. We will do this, together we will make America great again.”
Why did it have to get this bad, with lives lost, grave injuries, and a revered building defiled? Because when this many people are this lost it takes something this big, to wake them up.
Mike Pence finally spit out the Kool-Aid, none too soon. And unbelievably, so did Mitch McConnell. Sometime between hearing the first shouts in the rotunda and the shot that echoed in their heads, something started to shift. This is real. That shot cannot go back into the safety of the barrel it just left. That blood is real. So too, that broken window. And that statue, those ransacked desks. Real people are doing real harm.
Harm
Wakes
Us
Up.
Harm awakens the sleeping conscience.
When Elaine Chao, secretary of transportation, submitted her resignation, she referenced the traumatic and avoidable event that “…troubles me in a way that I simply cannot put aside.” This not-being-able-to-put-it-aside, is emblematic of the awakening of conscience: a necessary ingredient in restoring the humanity that was lost.
How will we manage the uncertainty ahead? In the only way we ever have effectively: with each other. We will stretch out a hand, “How are you doing? I’m heading to the grocery store, need me to pick anything up for you?” In a crisis, we manage by coming together. It’s the human way.
When someone snaps out of cultic influence shame rises to the surface. Can we look past the shame, into the eyes of our neighbor or sister, who we still recognize and say, “Hi. Need a hand with that load you are carrying?” Can we put our judgement aside and remember that they did not intentionally join the cult of Trump? No one ever joins any cult.
I learned this the hard way. When I snapped out of an eighteen-year trance induced by a once beloved teacher, I was welcomed by my family who had been waiting for me. Their love gave me dignity and helped to wash away my pain and shame.
It is my greatest hope that the thousands, if not millions of Americans, who are now waking up to having been hoodwinked by the world’s biggest narcissist, will be offered the same dignity I received. And I hope they are inspired to share their story with the hashtag #iGotOut.
I got out. So can they. Let’s help, not hurt their return home.
