Author: Sharron Burnett

One of the most famous and often spoken of old movies is Gaslight. The gist of the story is that a man attempts to drive his wife insane by making her believe that things that she is seeing are not real. He almost succeeds in driving her mad and gaining control of her fortune by playing mind games with her. Ultimately his plot is foiled but not before she begins to doubt everything that she witnesses.

From the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic I felt as though I had somehow been thrust into a real life version of Gaslight. I listened to my doctors and followed the science. In doing that I became ultra precautious. I have worn masks, constantly washed my hands and disinfected surfaces, avoided contact with strangers and even mostly stayed away from family and friends. I have ordered all of my groceries from Instacart and then carefully cleansed packaging and washed produce. I slowly became willing to eat takeout food from restaurants but I have refused to go inside any of them. I get most of what I need beyond food items from Amazon or through orders that come in the mail. When I travel I do not even use public restrooms or sleep in a hotel. Instead I bring my trailer which is outfitted with everything I need to continue my self imposed quarantine. Each time I decide to be a bit braver I consult with a number of doctors and do whatever that say. In all cases they have agreed that I should continue to be very careful.

As I have followed the thinking of the scientists and medical personnel I have witnessed the president laughing at those who arm themselves with masks, insisting that only old or already sick people will be adversely affected by the virus, promising that it will miraculously go away. I have watched his rallies where more than half of the people are crowded together without benefit of masks. I have seen people that I know living their lives as though there is nothing about which to worry. I have heard my daughters complain about situations in which they and their children were mocked for playing it safe. I have heard both politicians and private citizens angrily demanding their rights to freedom from restrictions of any kind regardless of their purpose. I have heard the pandemic being called a hoax. All the while I had begun to wonder if I was in fact the one who was crazy since so much of the world around me appeared to be carrying on as usual.

I watched my aunt almost die from Covid-19. I learned of a former student who was sick for many many weeks with Covid-19. I learned of acquaintances who had died from Covid-19. Many that I knew were touched by Covid-19. It appeared to be real but the naysayers looked askance at me, as though they pitied my silly overreaction when all I was doing was acting exactly the way my doctors told me to do. It has been frustrating and confusing. 

What angers me most is that it should not have ever been this way. Had everyone in our country followed the science all along most people would have been living as I have been. We would not have so many dead. We would have donned masks early. We would have consistently avoided crowds. We might never have had a second wave of the virus in the summer. We would have been better prepared for a cautious reopening of everything from businesses to schools. We would feel more confidence in slowly finding ways to return to a kind of normalcy. 

Instead we now have a President and First Lady who have tested positive for Covid-19 after flaunting a lack of concern for the virus in one public venue after another. President Trump even made fun of Joe Biden during the recent debate for wearing a mask, a very big mask as he so sarcastically noted. We have a President who was briefed on the severity of the virus but chose to hide what he knew from the public. He did everything he could to make us believe that all of the warnings about Covid-19 have been overblown. He heartlessly suggested that most of the deaths only occurred because people were old or already unhealthy, writing off lives as though they were of less value because they were marred by weakness. 

No more will I wonder if I have been a frightened sheep rather than an informed and precautious wise woman. I will don my mask and wear it proudly as a badge of my intelligence. I will follow science rather than worrying about snake oil salesmen trying to sell me a line of bull. I have been proven to be right all along. I am not crazy and neither are my daughters and their families. My mind is as clear as it has ever been and I pray that most of the rest of the nation will finally understand as I have that we must seek our guidance from the medical community, not from those seeking power over our lives that they do not deserve. 

I would never wish illness on anyone, especially an illness like Covid-19. I will not stoop to being as low as President Trump so often is. I will pray that he and his wife will have an easy and speedy recovery. I do not expect him to change his ways. At the age of 74 it is unlikely that he will become a new man from having been proven so wrong. Nor do I believe that those who believe that he has all the answers to deal with the woes of the country will think that his illness is anything more than a fluke. I suspect that they will carry on as usual and look askance at me. I no longer care. I am armed with truth and it has set me free.   

I am a generally happy and optimistic person. I’ve met challenges that might have broken me with determination and a sense that if I just keep moving forward I will find sunlight even in the most dire circumstances. I am a fighter, someone who is willing to walk through fire. When I do have worries or sadness I always believe that I will see better days ahead. I have tended to walk so quietly through life that I suppose that I am startling those who have known me for decades with my sudden willingness to use my voice. They are suddenly seeing an aspect of me that I mostly keep stored within my own heart. 

I was browsing through some photos that went back through the years and the common thread of all of them was that no matter what challenges may have been taking place in the background I was surrounded by a mantle of love and loyalty and compassion. I have always and still do consider my life to be a blessing but somehow of late I am experiencing a kind of deep and abiding sadness that I have never before known. I am not as sure as I always have been that my life will encounter a few bumps and then smooth out for an even longer time. I am seeing things that disturb me in ways that I have never before experienced. 

I suppose that I have mostly taken my good fortune for granted. I had good parents, a grounding in a loving faith, and I lived in a country where we mostly got along and allowed one another to have differing opinions without getting too bent out of shape. I realized that there were problems of all sorts but I felt confident that little by little we would iron out our difficulties and incrementally become better and better. I have had a very nice run.

When Covid-19 appeared among us I initially saw it as just one of those things that we would endure together. I was not frightened because I assumed that we would work to support one another just as we have always tended to do in this country. We try to be the good guys even as we know our flaws and attempt to fix them. It blew me away to see how divided we became over the pandemic rather than united. To me it was a simple matter of relying on the scientists and medical community to advise us but suddenly I saw the virus being weaponized as a political tool. Such a thing was unimaginable to me but I simply ignored those who were more concerned with demanding their rights than protecting one another. I did my part as many many people in this country did as well. I took precautions and supported businesses in my area and sent help to those who were in dire circumstances. It seemed like something that we should all be doing. I would not even have minded if I had received a tax increase to take care of the needs of my fellow citizens. I felt that we were all in this together, but evidence mounted that many did not agree with me.

When George Floyd was so egregiously killed by a rogue police officer I talked with my Black friends and recalled long conversations I had experienced with some of my Black students. I heard the pain in their voices as they recalled the fear and the injustice that they had endured almost as a matter of course. I realized that we had work to do to improve our systems of law and order. I cringed at the burning and looting but I did my best to focus on the real issue rather than being diverted by the bad actions of a few. I was saddened when our president chose sides rather than bringing everyone together. I felt that he only prolonged the riots by turning the cries for justice into a campaign for law and order. I was stunned that he seemed to simply ignore what our Black Americans were attempting to tell him. When he actually began to stoke fear among the citizenry I felt crushed and could only imagine how Black citizens were feeling. 

When I began to pronounce my feelings in public I received yet another surprise. People that I have known and deeply loved for a lifetime began to question my motivations and accuse me of beliefs that I have never held. I was asked if I supported violence and communism. My Catholic faith was questioned. I was told that I was thinking and acting like a child. I was assured that President Trump was actually sent to us by God and that I was blind if I could not see that. I even had people that I thought I knew accuse me of be unpatriotic, hating veterans and even being treasonous. 

Never in my lifetime have I seen such horrific divisions among the citizenry. I have known ultra left leaning people with whom I have disagreed on several issues but we always ended our discussions with a smile and a hug. I have known people who are ferociously dedicated to the right to bear arms and who believe in only same sex marriage and I have been content to allow them to believe as they wish and they have done the same with me. It seemed as though I truly lived in an America that was both able and willing to create a big tent that would hold all of our points of view. 

Somehow I have seen in the past many months that far too many among us are totally unwilling to even consider the idea of freedom of thought. Thus the source of my sadness. I see an America that feels very un-American and adamantly determined to force feed a single way of thinking. Not even the health of our citizenry rises to the occasion of bipartisan cooperation. Not even the evidence that some among us are treated differently in the justice system unites us. Instead we quibble and squabble even in our presidential debates. There is a nationwide sound and fury that signifies nothing and it is being repeated over and over again even in our relationships with one another. 

If I say that I will be cautious about Covid-19 I do not need anyone to suggest that I am just a nonthinking sheep. Perhaps I have consulted my doctor who has advised me to be careful. If I say that I understand what the Black Lives Matter movement is actually about I do not need to be reminded that sometimes the protests become destructive. Perhaps I am focusing on the heart of the problem rather than the outliers of violence. I can in fact support both the good BLM protests and the good law enforcement agencies while condemning either side that would devolve into destruction. If I have chosen to support Joe Biden in his bid for the presidency it does not mean that I want a communist country or that I am denying the tenets of my Catholic religion. It may perhaps mean that I have chosen from the only two possibilities and I see Biden as being a uniter rather than a divider which is what I believe our nation needs.

I have been told that President Trump only behaves the way he does because he is frustrated by the criticism that he has faced since he was first elected. I would ask everyone who says this why they did not seem to notice that Bill Clinton was accused of egregious things for eight years. George W. was called a moron and there was even much talk that he had stolen the election. Barack Obama was bombarded with ugliness that went beyond anything we had ever seen and reached into dark racist corners. In fact, every president, including our beloved Abraham Lincoln has had to face personal attacks as part of the job. Why should it have been any different for Donald Trump? I can only imagine how horrific the treatment of a President Hillary Clinton would have been if she had won. 

I will try to keep calm and carry on and keep smiling but my confidence that we will be reunited as a nation any time soon is being sorely tested. I fear that no matter who wins this election our problems as a country will only grow and we will continue to push ourselves apart. This is what keeps me up at night and send a darkness into my mind. I long for the day when I might once again express myself without upsetting half of the people I know. Nothing that they say can turn me away from them. I am in wonderment that my thoughts have so enraged them. I want the good America back. It does not have to be great. It only needs to be kind. We only need to be kind to make that happen.

The current line from the Trump campaign is that we cannot continue to hide and that we have to get out and get the economy going again. In truth we all know that we cannot avoid being out in public forever and that we have to make attempts to bring a sense of normalcy to our nation. The main difference between those who fall in line with Trump’s thinking and those who find fault with his ideas is in how we go about keeping the wheels of progress moving.

Each of us has an important role to play in overcoming the damage that Covid-19 has done to our way of life. How we approach the rebuilding process must first and foremost deal realistically with the virus itself. That means that we have to continue to wear masks whenever we are in contact with people other than those who reside in our household. Doing so is a small sacrifice that pays big dividends both to us and to those whom we encounter.

People need to work. When it is possible for jobs to be done remotely that should be the case. Strict precautions should be in place for those who must report in person for the tasks that they do. Those masks become ever more important in enclosed areas but even when outside. It is something that we should learn to accept just as firefighters adapt to wearing very uncomfortable gear as part of their duties. If doctors and nurses can don gowns, masks, gloves and face shields for twelve hour shifts we should be willing to cover our noses and mouths and keep distances while engaged in the work that we need to do. 

Our children must keep learning. School districts have mostly been quite accommodating in providing both face to face and remote teaching for the students. The health of our young and our educators is at stake so we have to be flexible in dealing with whatever challenges appear. Most importantly moms and dads must be vigilant and honest. No student should ever be sent to school if they demonstrate any symptoms of Covid-19 or if they have been exposed to the virus. We have to agree to adhere to unwavering quarantine protocols for the good of the educational community. 

Wars, economic crises and pandemics require sacrifice from everyone. We do not have to follow annual rituals exactly as we always have. We can celebrate birthdays without an elaborate party. Halloween can be fun without Trick or Treating. We can be thankful without a big parade. Christmas can be wonderful on a smaller than usual scale. In other words it will not hurt us if we have to make some changes this year nor will our children become confused and undone. We can still celebrate the meaning and spirit of those occasions without creating potential super virus spreader conditions. We can teach our children important lessons about sacrifice and flexibility.

I am taking a continuing education course from Rice University that is totally online. I recognize some of the participants from previous classes. The professor is just as interesting on the screen of my laptop as he is in a classroom. There is no reason for all of us to gather together in person for ninety minutes each week and run the risk of getting someone sick. So it should be with anything that might work without contact. It is a small price to pay to move forward safely.

We are social creatures, but we are also thoughtful logical people. We have the ability to think and revise our ways of living. If we ignore the science simply because we do not want to change the way things always have been we are demonstrating a high level of foolishness. We should be willing to learn and adapt. If we do not, then the consequences may be dire. Those of us being careful are not hiding. We are attempting to gain control of the situation rather than simply leaving the outcome to fate. 

I do not want anyone to have to suffer from Covid-19. Our president and most of the members of his party have led us astray with regard to how we should be handling this situation. There was no need for large in person political rallies at which few people wore masks or kept a distance from one another. It was dangerously selfish to hold such assemblies. It was the height of hubris and bad judgement for the President to shun masks and even make fun of his opponent for always wearing one. Masks are not a prop nor a sign of weakness. In fact wearing one when others are mocking the use of them demonstrates courage. Staying home when it is not necessary to go out and about is a sign of good judgement and concern. 

The gathering of a large group in the rose garden of the White House to introduce the Supreme Court nominee was an exercise in bad taste on countless levels. It was done before the former justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, had even been buried. It threw all caution to the wind by seating everyone elbow to elbow. Only a tiny handful of people who were there wore masks. They were conversing and hugging and shaking hands, all activities that the medical community has asked us not to do. The optics were shocking and in poor taste. The example for the rest of the nation was horrific. It was as though everyone there had lost their sense of judgement, an ironic twist given that the event was hosted to name an individual who will one day potentially be passing judgement on the laws of the land. 

Now we are dealing with the not so shocking news that our President, First Lady and many political leaders contracted Covid-19. We can show them compassion as we hope that they all recover but it would be wrong to give them a pass for being so cavalier. What they have been doing is wrong and it is prolonging the misery that we must all endure. Sadly even now they are continuing to underplay the absolute recklessness of their behavior and even accusing Joe Biden of using masks and caution as a prop.

It is one thing to carefully reboot the economy. It is another to attempt to go back to our routines with abandon and no regard for the safety of all people. Everyone who was present at the event that created so much sickness within the Republican party should have immediately quarantined for fourteen days just as teachers and students and employees have to do in similar circumstances. President Trump should have suspended every single rally and fundraiser on his schedule as soon as someone in his inner circle became ill. He too should have quarantined until he was certain that he had not somehow become a host for the virus. These are the kind of common sense tactics that will more quickly get us back to normal, not pretending that we must all toss the dice and depend on the good graces of God to take us out of this horrific situation. The Lord has given us our minds to solve problems. We should use them.

I was taught by my mother to be very observant. My father was dead and Mama said that if we wanted to live a normal life and go out even at night we just needed to watch our surroundings, be very careful. I became so good at vigilance that I was almost able to perfectly describe anyone who had been near me. I watched for certain looks and noticed if someone was following us. My mom said that I had the skills of a detective and often said that I had missed my calling and should have been a private eye or a lawyer. 

Instead I became a teacher and my observational skills helped me to notice when a student was hurting or stealthily causing trouble. Eventually they even helped me with my mother when she developed bipolar disorder. I was often able to detect small changes in her behavior that indicated that she was on the verge of a depressive or manic episode. 

At one time I was a shy little child, afraid of my own shadow. My mother’s illness forced me to become tough and even a bit aggressive. I had to become her voice, to get her the care that she needed. I no longer had the luxury of not rocking the boat. I developed the spirit of a warrior with the ability to see the world with unfettered eyes. I know a phony or a destructive person when I see one and I am not reluctant to call them out. I try to do so with respect and logic rather than emotion which served me well as a teacher and eventually the Dean of Instruction. I spent most of my adult life fighting for my mother, my children, my students and my teachers. 

Once my children were grown, my mother had died and had retired I thought that my days of going to battle for a good cause were done. I had planned to settle into quiet years of traveling and enjoying my hobbies and my grandchildren. I did not then know the extent to which President Donald Trump and unprecedented events would rock my world. Now I find myself reeling with worry and wonderment as we approach a presidential election in the midst of a pandemic, economic uncertainty, destruction from climate change, and protests for justice that have been long simmering under the surface of our democracy. During all of this I have sat on the sidelines mostly observing the different sides and this is what I see:

The Trump loyalists consider themselves to be the true patriots and defenders of democracy. They tend to be pro life and believe that only the president will protect the unborn. They are generally highly religious souls who are quite dedicated to their beliefs. They feel uncomfortable with the scenes of violence and destruction of property that they see on their televisions. They worry that our country is headed for socialism, communism and even a Marxist society and want to hold the line against such an evolution of our democracy. They advocate law and order, closed borders and low taxes. In general they want to be left alone to live in liberty and even though they often admit that they do not like the crassness of President Trump they prefer supporting him to watching the country radically change for what they see as the worst. 

While I respect each person’s point of view I see the current situation differently. So much bothers me about President Trump. He lies continually which makes it difficult to feel a sense of trust regarding anything that he says. In addition to that he savagely insults those who do not agree with him. The crudity of his language is disturbing and I cannot support it in any way. To me he is an embarrassment and the fact that so many good people have fallen under his spell is disheartening. I seriously wonder if there is any level of behavior low enough to convince them that he is a broken man who is dangerously unfit for the job of leading our country.

In President Trump’s attempt to retain power he has divided our country in ways not seen since the Civil War. He seems to take great delight in frightening his followers and portraying those of us who do not agree with him as haters of America, even traitors. I know that he is wrong and so it is time to clarify our positions. 

1. We love our country as much as and perhaps more than any Trump supporter. Love means being willing to note problems and work to solve them. It does not mean flying flags and singing songs. Many Democrats have served proudly in the military. In fact, today’s military is populated with astounding numbers of Hispanics whose parents are recent immigrants and Blacks who are proud to serve in spite of the racism that they continue to face. I am insulted when the president and some of his supporters insinuate that only they have the right to claim patriotism. I fiercely love this country and so do the Democrats that I know.
2. The Black Lives Movement indeed has problems. The ranks of protestors have been invaded by so many different groups that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the sincerely dedicated and peaceful from the Buggaloos, Proud Boys, Right wing nuts, and Antifa. We know that our Black Americans have a real problem with unequal justice and coming down hard on them as they attempt to draw attention to the realities of their lives is not the answer. President Trump has had multiple opportunities to genuinely attempt to speak with the people who are so distressed and create lines of communication with them and police departments, but instead he has seized the moment to frighten many Americans and turn them against our Black Americans who have a genuine and longstanding concern. A wise president would have already begun a process of seeking fairness for them. The violence that we now witness in the streets is because of him, not Democrats. Why would any of us believe that the protests will miraculously go away if he is reelected when he has done absolutely nothing to address the heart of the matter that drives them?
3. That wall about which Trump so proudly boasts has only resulted in five miles of new construction. The rest of the “building” was merely repair of existing structures. Not only that, Mexico has not paid a dime of the bill and so many immigrants have continued to come that he has chosen to house their children in prison like compounds.
4. When the pandemic came to our shores President Trump chose to hide the potential danger from us. I think he was more worried about his reelection than the lives of the American people. He has created confusion and even more division over what could have been a glorious moment of compassion and care taking of all of us. He might have saved many lives but instead he further divided us and ignored the advice of doctors and scientists.
5. I am pro life but I also know that statistically the number of abortions has gone down dramatically in the past twenty years because other forms of birth control have become more readily available. The steepest downward trend in abortions actually occurred during President Obama’s tenure after the passage of the Affordable Care Act. While I find abortion to be repulsive I am also willing to admit that even if it is outlawed it will not go away. It will simply return to back alleys and result in unsafe conditions for those who hold to beliefs different from mine.
6. We are not headed for a communist government as so many assert, but I fear that President Trump will become more and more authoritarian and demagogic if he is reelected. He seeks power over those of us who do not support him. He seems to take joy in attacking us with lies and innuendo. That worries me more as well as the cult like following of those who do support him.
7. Our economy was soaring for seventeen straight months during the Obama presidency. Trump inherited a healthy financial state of affairs and had to do very little to keep it going. I do not see him as the economic genius that he purports to be.
8. Trump followers worry about increased taxes and now we find that Trump himself has escaped income taxes with very shady dealings. As someone who even reports a cash payment of twenty five dollars for an hour of tutoring it galls me to think that he may have cheated the government out of its due with highly questionable deductions. It also concerns me that he carries an outrageous personal debt to some unknown source that will come due in four years. Little wonder that he has been under an audit for years.
9. I cannot nor can those who think like me support a man without character, a man who takes joy in dividing us, a man who so easily lies. I cry for my country every time that he opens his mouth. I know how to observe people and I have felt that he is a phony from the very beginning.
10. I pray for the very soul of the United States of America and its people. I find it frightening to think that so many are willing to ignore all of his quite obvious flaws. This is what I see and I chills my heart.

I am an American, not a citizen of a red state rather than a blue state. I am an American, not a supporter of Joe Biden rather than Donald Trump. I have always believed that the President of the United States cared about me and my needs not because of where I live, what religion I choose to follow, my sexual orientation, my race, my profession, my income, my age, or my political beliefs, but simply because I am an American. When a man or woman who is President takes the pledge to serve, protect and defend I believe that that it includes me and every other American in this land. I am an American who loves my country, my state and my city even when I point to the difficulties that must be addressed. 

I am an American who has voted in every election from the time that I first became eligible to do so. Some of those that I chose have been elected and others have not. It is the American way. I have witnessed our Presidents doing wonderful things and also making mistakes. They have rarely been perfect but they have all given a sense that they understood the gravity of their responsibilities and they have tried in most cases to serve all of the people as much as possible. It has only been President Donald J. Trump whose number one motivation for any decision that he makes is seemingly to garner praise and affection from the people who voted for him, leaving those who disagree with him to fend for themselves. 

For months now I have thought of an old public service announcement that featured a Native American paddling down a river in his canoe only to find garbage and pollution defiling the pristine environment. At the end of the spot he stands surveying the damage with a single tear running down his cheek. That is how I now feel as we move steadily toward election day in the middle of so much decay and division in our country. I am engulfed in a deep sadness for my country because I am an American. 

This is a momentous time in the United States. Our President lied to us about the true dangers of Covid-19 and failed to provide leadership for a cohesive national plan that would have saved lives. He sarcastically made fun of those of us who comprehended the seriousness of the situation and pushed aside the suggestions of experts, opting instead to feature only those who catered to his way of thinking. He divided us into red states and blue states, republicans and democrats insisting that the only patriots of our country are the ones who bow to him. He seemed to forget that we are all Americans and in fact allowed his supporters to continually suggest that those who take issue with him hate this country and might be better served if they left. He chose to ignore the reality that we are all Americans. 

In the middle of our battle with Covid-19 a movement long in coming bubbled to the surface when our nation witnessed the death of George Floyd at the hands of police. Just as with Covid-19 President Trump might have admitted that we have systemic problems that require our attention. He might have been a true leader by bringing the different sides together to discuss changes beneficial to all, but instead he chose to demonize the Black Lives Matter movement and incite anger to lionize himself. He intimated that anyone who supports the Black Lives Movement is against law and order, against America. He used what should have engendered a serious national discussion to divide us even more. He was unwilling to see us all as Americans. 

As if our trials in 2020 have not been enough to bear, our nation has been ravaged by wildfires and hurricanes that are undeniably the result of our failure to curb the mistreatment of our planet. Scientists are clear that our human indifference is our very atmosphere, making the likelihood of natural disasters more and more certain. This is a moment in which President Trump might have conceded that it is past time to take measures to curb our destructive behaviors but instead he chose to insist that he does not believe the scientists. He played to his base rather than considering that we are all Americans. 

I now have a tear running down my cheek because contrary to what Donald J. Trump may believe I am an American. I care about and respect all of humanity, all Americans. I believe in our freedoms but also understand that with the great gift of liberty comes great responsibility. I do not walk alone. I walk beside millions of fellow Americans and it is my duty as a citizen to first and foremost understand that my state is supposed to be united with forty nine others. When one of us hurts, all of us hurt. My mask is a mark of honor for life. My willingness to hear the cries of the oppressed is a mark of honor for freedom. My understanding that I must sacrifice in how I live to save my planet is a mark of honor for all that God has given us. I am an American who understands the meaning of the words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” 

I am an American along with almost three hundred thirty million others. Our President is only one person among many and I urge him to consider the duty of his pledge to defend, preserve and protect us all. I remind him that we are one nation under God with liberty and justice for all, not just those who wave his flags and flatter him with their adulation. His job is not about him. It is about all of us. It is about all Americans.