This Election is Costing Me Sleep, because Donald Trump will implement certain policies if Elected

I have not slept soundly through the night for some time now. I wake up between 3 & 4 or 5, relieve my prostate system, put buds in my ears and listen to the BBC.  There is nothing better to put me to sleep than the phrasings and tonality of a British accent.  I thank my 80+ year old friend Ed in BTV for turning me on to this.

But of course this morning they were discussing the U.S. election and my fears of what a Donald Trump win would mean overcame any inclination to return to sleep.  So I got up and began to type.

A speaker, unidentified to my brain said that Donald Trump does have 3 policies that you can count on him implementing and that is the basis for much of his support which has captured 3 groups of supporters:  Private Sector Union Workers, Tea Party supporters and America First/Isolationist types.

1.  Lower taxes and Reduced Free Trade

2.  Stop immigration

3.  No more promotion of democracy and nation building in Foreign Policy

That is what in my mind allowed Donald Trump to be nominated.  To that I would add the following which has allowed Evangelicals and Business types to get in line behind Trump even if they don't agree with #'s 2 & 3 or parts of #1.

4.  Do nothing about Global Warming & reverse Obama's Executive Orders

5.  Repeal ObamaCare

6.  Appoint Supreme Court Justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade and support prior decisions on Guns and Corporations have a Right to Free Speech and money is a form of speech.

Now what can you say for sure about such policies and this is why I could not sleep anymore.

Donald Trump's policies will end the America that represents Hope and that is the basis upon which so many Americans take pride in their country.  And why so many in the world want to be here if they could.  So basically Trump's policies are aimed at killing the founding premise of this country.

Why do I say that?  Well look at what each of these polices will actually accomplish.

1.  Lower Taxes will result in less government spending on defense and Human Services because Trump has said he will not touch Social Security or Medicare.  If he stops paying interest on our debt, which he has said he might do, there will be a financial crisis and my ability to support myself from my investments will be harmed.  Tearing up Trade Agreements will reduce corporate profits because business flows are build upon the rules that exist and changing them is not a positive.  We could have a depression from Trump's economic policies if he balances the budget.  That will crush hope.

2.  Removing 11 mm people from the U.S. will reduce GDP and cause a recession.  It will also require a police state apparatus that Trump can use for his own purposes as President.  That will crush hope.

And when doing #1 & #2 won't return the jobs to the Americans who support Trump because America doesn't have a manufacturing crisis.  We produce as much today as we did 30 years ago with far fewer workers because of technology advances and Trump cannot roll that backwards.  So that will crush hope when those avid supporters realize there is no change for them in Make America Great Again.

3.  Allowing Authoritarian Governments to operate unchallenged will crush the hope for those people who are subject to them.

4.  Doing nothing about Global Warming will depress anyone who cares about this issue and that will crush hope.

5.  ObamaCare needs to be adjusted but Trump has not said what he will do to replace it, only that he will repeal it as his 1st act of legislation.  So what will repeal actually result in.  Insurance companies will go back to discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions.  People who cannot afford their health insurance without subsidies will go uninsured again.  There will be chaos in hospital finances as the uninsured who cannot pay will flock to emergency rooms when they must get medical care.  The hospitals will seek to get reimbursement from those who can pay just like they used to and everybody's health insurance will cost more.  Unless, in the repeal, the Congress repeals the requirement that passed under Ronald Reagan that hospitals must provide care to anybody who shows up at their door (not to mention that the Hippocratic Oath might require them to do that also).  Anyway, this will destroy hope.

6.  Overturning Roe v Wade will be a slow moving issue.  We don't know what states will be allowed to do vs. what Congress might pass as national policy once the Supreme Court rules.  But we do know at least that if states are allowed to do their own thing, women in some states will be allowed to make their own decisions.  But women in other states will not have that choice and if they don't have the money to go to another state, they will bring into this world a child that may be unloved, may be brought up in unfortunate circumstances, may have physical and mental challenges, or may be an orphan at birth because the mother could not be saved because of new laws forbidding an abortion even for the safety of the mother's health.  That will destroy hope.

So that is what the Republican Party stands for today and it is depressing to me that 40% to 45% of Americans can support that vision.  That is not a country I want to live in because there is no hope.

How can there be hope when a person's unrestricted right to a gun is more important than my right to not be shot by someone with a gun?  How can there be hope, when the police state has the right to take or shoot anyone who fits a profile?  How can there be hope, when access to health insurance is dependent upon an employer being able to afford to help workers?  How can there be hope, when women are second class citizens if they don't comply with Evangelical views of how the world should operate.

I was raised in a small town which took pride in every way about the story of immigration and hard work in a society that rewarded effort.  It was quietly religious, but private about religion and didn't care what a neighbor's religion was.

My brain says how do I deal with this if Trump wins, but my heart cannot contemplate this eventuality.  My brain says maybe I should just commit suicide because I know I will be depressed and fearful about this loss of hope, but my heart cannot go down that path.  I have things I still want to do in this life.  I will probably need lots of Asian medical treatments to reduce my stress which my anger will create.  I am angry that so many people can support policies that destroy hope.  Hope has been the basis of my being from my earliest days.  I didn't really realize that until the end of this election.