I have not been writing in this consistently for several years now. First, the posts slowed to a trickle, now they are drops. Why the change?

Many of my early posts were about my children. They are all grown now, with their own lives. Only one lives at home; one lives a continent away. So no more cute posts about Little League or band camp or even college. I miss those days: they gave me endless things to think (and write) about. My life was more interesting then.

I posted about politics and democracy a lot. Our republic and its (dis)contents filled me with purpose, and writing about them gave me an outlet for my appreciation, or, more usually, my rage. I also occasionally did some good with what I wrote, such as the election where I collected the voting requirements (registration and absentee ballot deadlines, e.g.) for all fifty states in one place. I did that for a couple of elections before I found a national site that did the same thing. Next to nobody reads this thing, but I received several thank yous from people across the country.

Rage, and apprehension (what we are now we have been becoming for a long time), but not hate. Never hate. I disliked and feared George W. Bush and what he could do to our country, but I never hated the man personally, or wished him ill. The same for his father (who I actually respected), the same for Ronald Reagan.

Donald Trump and his minions have changed all that.

I hate Donald Trump. I hate much of the GOP leadership — much of the GOP itself. As a political party, they don’t play fair (they haven’t really for forty years but it’s gotten much worse in the last ten) — just look at the Supreme Court: when faced with an opening a year before Obama left office, Mitch McConnell refused to let the nomination of Merrick Garland to replace Scalia even be heard. “Wait until after the election,” he bleated. Yet he was willing to rush through Amy Coney Barrett with only weeks to spare until Trump left office. The hypocrisy and naked lust for power and willingness to ignore and abuse Constitutional norms (with the Garland case, not necessarily Barrett) takes my breath away — or would, if it had not been so in line with other actions.

I hate Mitch McConnell. I despise and detest with a burning passion the Freedom Caucus, who are so wedded to some twisted idea of political purity and pursuit of power that they demanded that Kevin McCarthy put forth no legislation that would be signed on by any Democrat. I hate Kevin McCarthy. I hate that I feel compelled to keep saying “no relation” after I utter Marjorie Taylor Greene’s name.

I hate the MAGA people. I hate the insurrectionists. I hate those who have decided that they want a dictator; democracy and decency be damned. (Note: I am not talking about those who voted for Trump because they honestly thought he aligned more closely with their values than Joe Biden. I don’t hate those people; I think they’re misguided, but I don’t hate them. I am talking about the people who parrot the Big Lie, who view Trump as akin to Jesus. THOSE are the people I hate.)

I hate the white supremacists and the anti-Semites. I hate the people who threaten the lives of people I care about.

I hate the transphobes and the culture warriors bent on destroying the lives of people they think are unnatural or even evil because those people don’t align with some fundamentalist religious viewpoint of how people should be. I hate the zealots trying to keep kids — even in high school! — from reading about someone who has a different sexual orientation or a gender identity they don’t approve of, even at the risk of increasing bullying of those who are different. Or who obsess over who uses which bathroom. Or who outlaw gender-affirming care for minors, forcing parents to make the agonizing choice between pulling up stakes and moving to another state or forcing their trans kids to forego needed medical care.

I hate hate HATE Ron De Santis. Not only is he one of those people who want to destroy the well-being of trans people, he has made my home state, MY state, a place where my nonbinary kid and my trans friends are unwilling or outright afraid to visit.

I can’t watch Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis on television. My blood pressure goes up just hearing the sound of their voices. Thank heavens for closed captioning, although reading what they say is bad enough.

And when I say hate, I mean HATE. I want these people dead, preferably in the most painful way possible. I would never commit murder, but I’m not sure I would care much if someone else did.

Except then they’d be martyrs, just like Ashli Babbitt, the woman who was shot by the Secret Service as she tried to lead a violent mob into a chamber where they were trying to evacuate Congressmen. The last thing we need is something else for these rabid dogs to rally around.

No, better that they die a natural death, even if that is somehow less satisfying than if they were shot by someone whose life they threatened. I keep having fantasies that Donald Trump won’t be shot but will be struck by lightning while he’s out golfing.

Another thing I hate? I hate feeling hate. It feels… unhinged. Out of proportion. There are degrees, of course: I hate the transphobes and the white supremacists and insurrectionists far more than I do Mitch McConnell. But I do still feel hatred towards McConnell. In any case, I turn into someone I don’t recognize, or like.

I keep trying to turn hate into some other emotion: outrage, or pity. But I can’t pity people destroying the country I love, and I am beyond outrage. Outrage includes an element of surprise, and nothing these people do anymore surprises me.

And I realize I am just playing into their hands. They want to be hated, they want to be feared, by people like me. That’s called “owning the libs.” My hate mirrors their own.

And hate is paralyzing. I don’t write about politics because I find it frustrating and enraging. But I need to. I need to start reengaging with the the mess this country is in. I need to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. I need to be an activist.

And writing is the first step for me. I write, and then I try to do something about what I write. For example, I wrote about elections, and then I got jobs revolving around elections — first as a phone banker for a labor organization, then as an elections worker. I have been thinking for a while now that I would like to be part of Katie Porter’s campaign for Senate. (I heart Katie Porter. Sorry, Adam Schiff.) Maybe writing about why I find Katie Porter such an attractive candidate would give me the motivation to call her campaign office and see what I can do. Or maybe I will call the League of Women voters, and volunteer, although the state where I live has a good track record of promoting voting and protecting voting rights. If I could do something about the states that have passed voter suppression laws, I would be more useful.

Writing of any kind is good for my brain. A close relative was just diagnosed with dementia, and that terrifies me. The thought of losing my faculties makes me break out in a cold sweat. I can’t promise that I would not die rather than live with dementia.

Writing is good for my mental health. Writing this post has let me express things I have been feeling for a long time. Even if I never touch on the subject of politics ever again, even if all I do is write about the three cats that live in my house, I will still feel more connected to the world. Identifying what to write about has been difficult; writing will force me to engage more with what’s going on, both personally and with the world at large. The discipline of looking for something to write and sitting down and actually writing would be good for me.

So we shall see.