Author: Sharron Burnett

Many years ago I was studying for a Masters Degree at the University of Houston Clear Lake. I had some phenomenal professors who introduced to to ideas and knowledge of which I had before then been unaware. I took a class in Labor Law that was so enlightening that if I had been a bit younger I might have considered going to law school as the professor encouraged me to do. Another class on Public Administration taught me all about the agencies in Washington D.C. and the people who work at them. I learned the importance of keeping such agencies as free of political influence as possible. The trouble with them is not that they are attempting to ram regulations down our throats but that some political parties are attempting to reshape them to represent certain ideologies. 

I also became convinced that there is great benefit to everyone when individuals work together within teams to create and work for common goals. When the initial phase of arguing and storming does not lead to cooperation it is a sign the the institution is severely broken. This is where we appear to be today within all three branches of our government. The executive branch of the incoming president is attempting to choose a cabinet whose loyalty will be to him rather than to the Constitution and the American people. The Congress and the Senate accomplish little or nothing because they are always bickering. They have surrendered their focus on making laws to the president who just issues executive orders that change with each new election. The Supreme Court has decided that the chief executive is immune to the same laws that everyone else must follow. The result is a federal government that seems to go in circles and cater more to a particular ideology than to the idea of working things out and compromising for the good of all the citizens. 

Perhaps the most informing class that I took was called Benefits and Compensation which focused on the kinds of perks that companies and institutions provide for employees beyond salaries. Some are specified by unions, some by law, and some are related to Social Security and Medicare rules. I remember the professor warning of the ultimate crash of Social Security if the Congress continued to refuse to make needed changes bit by bit. 

The prof explained that when Social Security first came to be an actuarial study was made to learn when the average American would most likely die. At the time is was the age of sixty five so when that age was used as the time of retirement and payout of the funds most of the people who had contributed would already be dead. In other words they understood that there was no way that the program was sustainable unless most people never made it that far. 

Over time medical care improved but the age at which citizens could claim the SS benefits only slightly changed. In the nineteen nineties when I took the class on benefits and compensation the average age of death for Americans was in the late seventies. I would suspect that it may be even a bit higher by now. Not only that, but the Boomer generation is huge and there are even a few older folks who are still hanging on in their nineties. As the prof pointed out the system will only work in the future if we are willing to make changes. 

I remember an uncle who was fairly well to do saying that he felt it was wrong for him to take the Social Security payments even though he had paid into them. He commented that many of his retired friends would joke the SS was paying their greens fees so that they might play golf more often. He suggested that there should be some kind of cutoff point after which a person is no longer eligible for the payments much like they do with retirees from the military, firefighting, politicking and teaching. I don’t know how much of a dent such a thing might work out to be but I would hate to think that those who really need those payments might one day lose their checks otherwise. 

My husband has pointed out that a while back Congress put a cap on payments to Social Security after reaching a certain income. We now have billionaires who don’t pay another dime after they very quickly reach this plateau. Maybe we should return to a time when there was no cap. If someone reaches a very high income it would help if they would have to continue paying their proportional share. 

I could go on and on about what I learned in the class that so changed the way that I think. I have ideas about Medicare as well and even health insurance. All I know is that we seem to be speeding toward a crisis caused by our need for basic security and healthcare. Like far too many things our government fears the idea of doing the right things and working together to solve the problems. Instead we are now faced with the prospect of unelected billionaires deciding the fate of so many of our agencies. Somehow I suspect that some of my old professors would be shaking their heads and reminding us that they tried to warn us about what was coming. When will we learn to look ahead rather than waiting for the last minute? There have always been feasible answers but they will only happen when we finally decide to work as a team and assess payments and needs according to proportion. 

When I was a young mother I hardly noticed what was actually happening on the political scene. My time and devotion was mostly dedicated to caring for my babies. I tended to vote for parties rather than people, often being unfamiliar with policies and beliefs of different candidates. It was a rather slipshod way of voting and I regret any mistakes that I may have made but in retrospect I mostly got lucky in making good choices. 

During my career as a teacher I became more interested in politics and much more aware of the issues and platforms of the different parties and candidates. I felt that my decisions were based more on facts and informed viewpoints than they had once been. In fact, I actually became rather interested in the whole process of our democracy and began to learn about things that I did not previously understand. I nonetheless knew far less about local politics than national issues. Sometimes I rather dangerously voted for someone based on which party they represented rather than actually knowing what their platforms were. It was a rather shaky and maybe even a bit dangerous way of voting. 

In my retirement years I approached our political system with a passion. Thanks to the internet and multiple subscriptions to different publications I voraciously read about all of the issues and became more and more familiar with the backgrounds of those running for office. At the time I was not a one party voter because I often found that doing so would force me to accept candidates whose views collided my own. 

Somewhere around 2014, I even spent time watching Fox News to see if I might learn about something that my own sources did not discuss. I was shocked to see how one sided that media outlet was. I felt as though their reporting was little more than 24/7 editorializing and even that was based purely on ideas and sources that I knew to be riddled with falsehoods. I began to understand the kind of brainwashing that many voters were experiencing by tuning in exclusively to a network that claimed to be fair and balanced but which never appeared to present more than one point of view. When they threw their unswerving support to Donald Trump in the 2016 election I tuned out but still kept track of what they were saying just so I would know what kind of propaganda they were peddling. 

I was actually stunned when Trump won in 2016 and not surprised at all when his administration was chaotic. When Covid came along I hoped for the sake of the nation that he would set aside his pride and work for the good of the people and for a brief time he actually did. Then he saw the signs that some of his supporters were feeling anxious about the two week national quarantine that he created to flatten the curve of the virus. He realized that people did not like hearing the truth about the sickness and the numbers of people dying. They wanted quick and easy answers but the doctors that Trump had enlisted to help were being scientific and following the premise of first doing no harm by being conservative in their advice. 

Trump lost his patience and soon began creating doubt in the minds of his supporters that they were being properly guided. He pushed the experts aside and began making ridiculous suggestions of his own. He eventually juggled the situation so badly that the United States with its incredible health system was leading the world in deaths. He lost control of the situation because he was not thinking about the good of the nation but his own poll numbers. Little wonder that he lost the election in 2020.

But of course we all know that Trump was unable to accept defeat and so he began to spin a web of lies that led to an insurrection and riot in the Capitol unlike anything ever before witnessed in the history of the United States. At that low point in our nation I thought that surely Trump’s political career was dead and that he would quietly go home and just spend his time golfing and hosting friends at Mar a Lago. Instead he beat the drum of pity so incessantly that people began to believe that he was the aggrieved party and not the sanctity of our election process. Still I did not believe that there would be enough Americans willing to turn their gaze away from his immoral actions and words to send a felon and traitor back to the White House and yet here we are. 

I think of the people that I know who almost enthusiastically voted for Donald Trump as though they were righting some terrible wrong and standing on the side of all that is good about America. I believe that most of them are sincere in their beliefs but I cannot help but wonder why they did not question the lies and hoaxes and hatefulness that Trump fed them. Were they just too busy living to realize how they were being played? Were they guilty of relying on only one propagandized source of information? Did they really believe that this cruel man was actually sent by God to save them and their children? Did they somehow allow themselves to be gaslighted into believing that evil was good and morality was bad? 

These are questions that still linger in my mind and somehow I need an answer because it is very clear to me that our nation is in danger because a petty, vindictive man is out for revenge against those that who tried to hold him responsible for his crimes. He spoke of trying and hanging his own Vice President and having a trial for the doctor who did his best to help us navigate the pandemic. None of it makes sense to me and yet very good people with very kind hearts celebrated his victory. 

Nothing is normal. The media, the Republicans and a huge swath of Americans act as though Trumps plans are good and cruel and even a bit crazy. Why aren’t more people speaking up? Why does it have fall to the ACLU to call him out for his overreach? Why are we not upbraiding him for railing about an Episcopal Bishop who gently reminded him to remember how Jesus taught us to love and care for each other? Why do we not fear the motive behind the actions of someone who claims to believe that he was saved from an assassination because God wanted him to wreak havoc on immigrants and transgender persons? When was it ever right to demand total loyalty from the people who work daily to keep the agencies of our nation running smoothly. How can we accept the idea of using our military to guard the border or stop protestors? What could possibly make us safer with the ugly divisions that Trump is creating?

I would appreciate knowing why anyone thinks that what is happening is good. I will listen and then quietly and patiently give my views on each point they make. I think we need to meet and express our love and concern for each other and then have an honest talk. When all is said and done Trump is wrong. We need each other, not a bully tearing our nation apart. 

It is a snowy day which is incredibly unusual where I live in Texas less than fifty miles from the Gulf of Mexico. It’s quite peaceful to just sit quietly looking out of my window. I enjoy watching the children making snowballs and throwing them at each other. I like their laughter as they attempt to build snowmen. I should be calm right now, but I am not.

I’m sipping on hot cocoa and thinking about how much I enjoy the scene all around me but also worrying about what will happen to my beloved country in the future. I want to just look away and hope for the best after the inauguration of our new president, but I don’t think it would be wise for me to do so. Donald Trump and his dreadful plans frighten me in a way that little else in my life has ever done. His attacks on innocent people fly in the face of all of the beliefs I foster and the work that I have done with young people for decades. His description of a “golden age” sounds dystopian and authoritarian to me and I fear what the coming days and weeks will bring. 

I am the granddaughter of immigrants who were as disdained back in the early nineteen hundreds as today’s immigrants from south of our borders are today. Somehow the people seeking refuge, work, and opportunity in our country are all too often viewed as a stereotypical whole rather than the individuals that they are. Where Trump sees them as a nuisance I know most of them to be good people who are willing to work hard to provide their children with better lives. I know that they often do jobs that most of us would be loathe to consider. 

They remind me of my grandfather who first worked on farms tending and harvesting crops when he came to America from Slovakia. Eventually he landed a job in a meatpacking plant cleaning the floors and walls in the area where animals were slaughtered. It was back breaking work that allowed him to feed and clothe his eight children during the Great Depression, but it no doubt cut his life short. His legs were riddled with bulging veins that he wrapped in bandages to alleviate the pain. Nonetheless he reported to his job every single day without complaint and taught his children to love the United States and the freedom that they had. He died from a stroke before he was able to retire and only month before I was born.  

I am sure I would have liked my grandfather because he was an avid reader and learner like I am. In his memory I spent much of my work life teaching recent immigrants to this country. I never asked who was legal and who was not but sometimes students whispered to me their fear of being deported. I always promised them that I would protect them if anyone attempted to send them away. I still feel compunction to honor that pledge even as Trump promises that his roundup of such people will be swift and without compromise. 

I worry about the fate of trans people who have done absolutely nothing to incite the ire of Trump and his MAGAs. They are such a small percentage of the population that they hardly register a bleep. Most people have never met a trans person but I have. I know them to be gentle and sincere and caring. They are not folks who would even think of hurting anyone and they mostly just want to be left alone to live in peace with the freedom to be who they are. 

I worry that Trump has created such a ruckus over them that they are in danger. I am anxious about their safety and feel a sense of foreboding about what will happen to them. I know that Trump is using them as a tool to rile up his followers and to get them to believe that he is a savior of some kind. The truth is that he is simply a vindictive bully who is a master of propaganda. He knows full well that when people are frightened they are often willing surrender unlimited power to anyone who claims to make them safe. 

Trump has just pardoned some of the vilest individuals in our population for their abominable crimes on January 6, 2021. Many of them are modern day Nazis and far right extremists who will do Trump’s bidding even if it requires violence against others. I fear what will happen if Trump calls on them again to carry out violence against our government. Who will be hurt this time? How can we just look the other way as they spew their hate?

The snow is beautiful and comforting and clean but it will melt and I will have to go back into this new world that feels so dangerous. I’m not generally a fearful person and I’m not one for conspiracy theories. Nonetheless, I am worried about what the next four years will bring. After all Trump has told us what he plans to do and it will constrict the freedom of so many innocent people. I keep wondering what I might do to help them. 

I suppose that I write about my concerns because it is one of the things that I know how to do. In a sense I hope to keep others informed of the dangers and enlist their help if the time becomes to save our freedom and democracy. Trump seems intent on persecuting groups filled with innocent people. I believe that it will be immoral to simply look away and do nothing to help them. Sadly I suspect that I am just preaching to the choir while those who know my views but disagree with me will simply ignore what I have to say and cheer on Trump to be strong in his determination. 

I will linger a bit longer feeling the comfort of the snow. I’ll file this picture away in my mind for days in the future that may become grim. It will be a way to soothe my anxieties and remind me of my resolve. I suppose that I won’t be the first American who has had to take a deep breath when defending our nation or making life more free for marginalized people. Maybe this is how my great grandfather felt as a Union soldier in the Civil War. War is frightening and he must have witnessed horrors. I must remember my ancestors who have endured hardships for their families and for this nation I owe it to both my grandfather and my great grandfather to be brave. 

My brother, Michael, was always considered the brilliant sibling. From the time he was a child his mathematical acumen was stunning. None of us were surprised when he graduated at the top of his high school class. When he was accepted at Rice University, one of the premier colleges in the country, we knew that he was on his way to fulfilling his dreams. After earning both an undergraduate and Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering he was courted by many companies but ultimately chose work with a NASA contractor to fulfill his childhood imaginings of be part of humankind’s journey into space. 

It was through his work that Michael met Becky Liu, a beautiful engineer originally from Taiwan. He knew her name from meetings and had only briefly spoken with her, but he wanted to get to know her better. One weekend he decided to call her. The only problem is that their were many Liu’s in the Houston phone book, and none of them were called Becky. He began his quest by calling each number on the list and asking if he might speak with Becky. it was a daunting task but he was determined to find her. After many attempts he finally reached someone who said that she was visiting his home and he would get her. 

The rest was a beautiful story. The two of them clicked almost immediately. They were like a set of bookends that went together perfectly. Michael was somewhat shy and introverted while Becky was outgoing. Both were academically gifted but also enjoyed camping, hiking, running and being outdoors. They loved music and live performances of the symphony and opera company. It did not take long for them to fall in love. It was amazing how their two different cultures were so wonderfully enmeshed. 

Becky asked Maryellen and Catherine to be part of the wedding party. They were quite excited about the lovely yellow dresses that they would wear. Pat was going to be Michael’s best man and Mama was elated for her son. Michael asked Mike to be one of his groomsmen as well. Even though Mike looked like a skeleton because he was undergoing chemotherapy for a fungal disease, he eagerly donned the formal wear and was quite happy to be doing something besides getting stuck with needles and enduring hours of infusing drugs into his body. Best of all I would finally officially have a sister. In fact, I would even be able to share her siblings. It was a glorious moment for all of our family. 

The wedding was perfection, a meeting of east and west with great love. Becky looked like a princess and Michael was beside himself with happiness. The celebration at the reception was palpable. Becky was particularly respectful and effusive with Mama. The two of them got along immediately. After a honeymoon in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado the happy couple settled down in a sweet house near NASA and all of our lives changed in a positive direction.

Mike was soon declared cured of his fungal disease. There would be no more hospital visits or infusions. We were more than glad to get back to normal or what we hoped would be normal. Sadly Mama had another episode of severe depression with some paranoid psychosis. I had to face the possibility that her illness was chronic and that her fate would be to battle its symptoms over and over again. This time she was not nearly as bad as in the beginning but she did require regular visits for psychiatric care. Her doctor also requested that she stay in my home until she was better. He advised me to mostly allow her to rest, but to gradually increase her responsibilities so that she would ultimately be ready to return home and to work.

It was nice having her living with us for a time. She mostly enjoyed cooking and playing with her granddaughters. She liked her doctor aAnd promised to follow his prescriptions. Her recovery was fairly quick so we all celebrated at Thanksgiving with our growing family and the assurance that Mama now had a plan for keeping her illness at bay. It was also great to see Mike regaining his own glow of health and to know that he was no longer in danger. We had weathered more storms and felt confident that we had learned how to endure any challenge that might come our way. 

With the dawn of nineteen seventy eight I was more assured of myself than ever. I had conquered my fears and learned that I was capable of weathering any storm that might come my way. Better yet I realized once again how important family and friends were in centering and supporting me. I knew that some would only be there for a certain time and others would follow along with me for all of my days. I would never be alone.

Sometimes we see ourselves in certain characters in books, on television, in movies. Right now I find myself thinking of an old Star Trek episode that featured an alien empath named Gem. The mute woman was so sensitive to the suffering of others that she was literally able to take away their pain. Sadly the cost of doing so was enormous for her just as such selflessness always is for those who take on the concerns of others. 

There are people among us who are so empathetic that they sometimes have to withdraw from society for a time or go mad. They care so deeply about the people around them, even strangers, that they often find themselves being overwhelmed. I believe that much of the depression that my mother experienced had its source in her unremitting kindness and compassion for others. While she had an uncanny ability to understand and grieve for those who were suffering, she also had a difficult time turning off the anxieties that came with being so incredibly sensitive. Her feelings and love for others was so deep that it sometimes hurt her.

At the opposite end of the spectrum are sociopaths who have little or know concern for anyone but themselves. They are emotionally cold and able to ignore the needs of the people around them. Their entire focus is on their own needs or whatever project they devote their lives to achieving. They can be charming without actually caring about the people that they use to reach their ends. They might appear to all the world to be highly successful because they are able to focus on getting what they want without being distracted by the kind of emotions that sometimes divert the rest of us. 

Obviously it is unhealthy to be at either extreme of the emotional spectrum but more often than not the empath is viewed as being weak while the sociopath is heralded as a person of strength and success. As a society we often admire the person who does not become sidetracked by morality or compassion while viewing the empathetic person as someone who is delusional. I saw such responses to my mother again and again from people who did not realize the incredible extent of her ability to understand the suffering in the world in a visceral way. 

I suppose that DNA and modeling from my mother has impacted me. I am indeed a very empathetic soul even as I am able to moderate my intense feelings more carefully than my mama was able to do. Nonetheless there are moments when, like her, I begin to feel overwhelmed by what I see as the sadness and even cruelty in our society. I have had occasions when I had to back off just a bit from my emotional responses to students who were in troubling situations. I had to learn that becoming too involved in worries about them did little to actually help them but definitely sapped energy from me. 

As a dedicated teacher I knew my students well and sometimes when a preponderance of them were struggling at the same time that my mother was becoming ill, I had to give myself mental health breaks by staying home for a day or two to recharge my batteries. i saw that i was no good to anyone when I became run down with worry. 

We are barely into the new year and yet I feel as though I am my mother or Gem from Star Trek. I am grieving the loss of a great man, Jimmy Carter, and wondering where we might find more people like him in a world that seems to be out of whack. I am overwhelmed by the horror of the fires in Los Angeles and realize that the dire warnings about climate change that one of my grandchildren has been predicting have come to pass. I feel as though I can hear and feel the agony of people in war torn parts of the world. I lie awake at night considering how frightened immigrants in our midst might be feeling at this moment. I hear vile threats against the LGBTQ community and wonder if people that I love who are members of that group will have their lives torn apart in the coming days. I see attacks on humanity happening with greater and greater force and my empathetic impulses are responding in a state of high alert and agitation. 

It is all too draining and my instinct is to draw back into a state of isolation for a time lest I am overcome with sorrow. Instead I know that these are not ordinary times. Instead I have to take a deep breath and push myself beyond the pain that I am feeling for others. There will be time for rest later and right now the world needs individuals with empathy more than ever. 

The truth is that the self centered emotionless people are actually the weaklings among us and the empathetic folks are the heroes who will eventually set things right. It has always been that way in the long history of humans. We have been saved time and again by compassionate souls like Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who were steadfast in moving the world in a kind and gentle direction. Such people might seem to be dreamers, idealists but it is from them that the best tendencies of our nature are revealed. 

I suppose I will rest for a tiny bit each day so that I will be ready to absorb some of the pain in the world. I can do this one person at a time, on day at a time. There is much sacrifice and work to be done. This is not a time to look away.