Liberals are Suffering the Seven Stages of Grief

Even if you are not aware of the “7 Stages of Grief” originally conceptualized by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, you may have experienced them at some level in your own life. Recovery from grief is possible. The Kubler-Ross model is not the best model for grief recovery but it suits my purposes here.

Let me illustrate the seven steps by examining the behavior of many liberals since the 2016 Presidential Election. Please note that individuals and groups can exhibit more than one of these steps simultaneously and they do not necessarily follow in specific order.

SHOCK:                 Lots of people were shocked when ‘sure thing’ Hillary Clinton failed to win the 2016 election for U. S. president. It just didn’t seem possible. For shock, look no further than the election night coverage. As the returns dribbled in confirming state after state going for Trump, the glib self-assurance of the mainly liberal commentators visibly drained from grinning to chagrin, betraying a sinking awareness that their prognostications were horribly off mark. As the tone sank from smug to glum one could almost hear their thoughts sifting frantically through mental rolodexes for whom they could call should they find themselves jobless on Wednesday morning.

DENIAL:                It didn’t take long for denial to set in. The shrill wailing and gnashing of teeth began before the voting machines had cooled. Calls for vote recounts began almost immediately and Green Party candidate Jill Stein spent millions of dollars attempting to ‘fix’ a faulty outcome and ‘restore the integrity of our voting system’. Hillary Clinton and others cheered this effort after ridiculing winner Donald Trump for expressing before the vote, his concern that Democrats might once again try to steal an election.

The irony that Democrats instinctively resist attempts to establish election integrity safe-guards such as voter ID requirements was lost only on Democrats.

Another example of denial would be that Hillary Clinton insists that “she won” the election because she gained more popular votes. The fact that popular votes have never been decisive in choosing our president shows the lengths people will go to support their denial. Or would that be called ‘delusion’?

ANGER:            There are too many examples of anger to cite here; violent campus riots, faked hate crimes, fake news, and everyone’s favorite, calls for impeachment. Democrats started calling for Trump’s impeachment prior to the inauguration and continue to this day.

According to our Constitution, in order to impeach, an actual crime must have been committed by a sitting president. That pesky requirement won’t go away. Additionally, the Democrats lacking control of either house of Congress is another stumbling block that these wannabe demagogues can’t effectively ignore.

Name calling is a favorite tactic of people devoid of ideas. Those who routinely condemn “hate speech” think nothing of calling Trump and his supporters a fascist, racist, blank-o-phobe (fill in the blank), hater, anti-semite and worse. This tactic, and voter’s weariness of it may be one factor in Trump winning. The fact that many of the protesters embrace and practice those very behaviors they claim to abhor and project onto Trump is disturbing.

Of course, the whole Russia-gate scandal started within 24 hours after the election and despite the lack of evidence (that would be zero evidence) Trump colluded with Russians to steal the election, multiple investigations continue six months into Trump’s presidency. How is it that the best intelligence agencies in the world cannot find evidence of criminal activity by such “a foolish, ignorant troll”?

If collusion existed, would it look something like former President Obama telling Russian President Medvedev that he “would be more flexible after he is re-elected”? Or would it look more like then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signing off on the sale of 20% of U.S. uranium reserves to a Russian owned mining company?

BARGAINING:   This stage is just now coming to the fore. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer offered to cooperate with President Trump on healthcare “if he ditches the Freedom Caucus” and does it Schumer’s way.

Other Democratic leaders, such as Nancy Pelosi are trying to quell the silly demands for impeachment from Rep. Maxine Waters, Sen. Cory Booker, Rep. Al Green and others.  Once Democrats regain both houses of Congress you can expect that chorus to rise once again.

After months of former FBI Director James Comey being condemned by the left for his betrayal of Hillary, Trump thought firing the director would be seen as a peace offering, a chance to meet in the middle. Of course, it is not about Comey or anything else, but only about stopping Trump no matter what he does.

Trust that all bargaining overtures are merely a ploy to co-opt Trump and separate him from his constituency, the better to sacrifice him.

DEPRESSION:     Can you say ‘snowflake’? This stage set in early and continues like a low-grade fever throughout the leftward end of the political spectrum. Universities set up ‘safe spaces’ with ponies and soft blankets for students who just couldn’t cope with the fact that Trump won. Reality can be so inconvenient. It’s not fair! I’m going to hold my breath until Hillary is President.

I know of one graduate student who retreated to her bed for over a week after the election. In doing this, she literally abandoned her mental health clinic internship until she found the strength to cope. The clinical responsibilities she abandoned included providing therapy to several chronically mentally ill clients.

TESTING:             The typical Democratic playbook needs some rewrites. Hysterically calling anyone you disagree with a racist doesn’t send people scurrying to the shadows like it once did. Playing the Russia-gate card is also reaping diminishing returns. One former Democratic Congresswoman, Nina Turner says people at town hall meetings aren’t asking about Russia, they’re asking about jobs. Go figure.

ACCEPTANCE:    Sooner or later the individual suffering from debilitating loss eventually comes to a place of peace and acceptance from where they can re-enter society and contribute in a positive manner. Of course, acceptance does not necessarily mean agreement or approval.

Grief can be a debilitating condition that inhibits one’s ability to manage simple tasks and maneuver through the day and through life. It affects one’s ability to maintain healthy relationships. Grief can sap one’s ability to successfully defend those people and ideals one holds dear. Grief is a necessary emotional process, but if one gets stuck, grief can keep one from living a full life.

The population I have used to illustrate the concepts of the Seven Stages of Grief may yet reach the point of acceptance in their recovery. I certainly hope so.

But I haven’t seen it yet.

….

John K. Adams is a writer, video-memoirist and a certified Grief Recovery Specialist who works in Los Angeles, CA.

‘Fly’ with the Tuskegee Airmen at The Pasadena Playhouse

Imagine a world with no freeways. The only practical way to travel across country was by train. There were no smart phones, no internet, nor television.

This was before Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King, Jr. made their marks. It was a time when, by law, some men and women were restricted in their movements, actions and speech. It was a primitive time. Things hadn’t changed since the Civil War. But this time is not imaginary. Men and women living today remember it.

Fly, the play, tells the true story of living men, African-American men, who were the first to successfully challenge that system and lead the way to freedom.

It is the story of men learning to fly.

Using multimedia, dialogue and tap dance, they tell of human struggle and triumph, not as a history lesson, but so the audience sees through the eyes and feelings not of heroes but of men. They tell the inside story of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first squadron of African-American fighter pilots.Writer/Director and Tony Award winner Ricardo Khan and his co-writer Trey Ellis have done something remarkable with their play Fly, which begins performances January 26th at The Pasadena Playhouse.

Chief Technical Consultant, Dr. Roscoe Brown, a veteran Tuskegee Airman said, “We knew there was racism. It wasn’t whether it would change, but when? We knew if we could excel, we could move things forward.” And they did.

Back then, the immediate threat was fascism. These men wanted to defend their country and defeat the enemy. And they conquered their own demons.

In 2008, surviving veterans attended President Obama’s first inaugural and received the Congressional Medal of Honor. 2016 is the 75th anniversary of that first Tuskegee Airmen class.

Mr. Khan states, “We want to make today’s generation understand a time when people were not just looked at as different, but were separated and kept apart, by law.”

He continued, “There are lots of forces seeking to divide us today. We need stories like this, to bring us together. It isn’t just about race either, nor politics, age or class, but our common humanity.”

Back then whole regions of the country were isolated from each other. Those first Tuskegee Airmen came from Iowa, New York, the southern U.S. and the Bahamas. They had much to learn from each other and about themselves.

During WWII, the Tuskegee Airmen conquered a multitude of concrete legal and social challenges. However, their story is universal. Today, each generation and every individual, must also break free of perceptual chains and self-imposed doubts before their spirits may soar.

See the play “Fly” from January 26th-February 21st at The Pasadena Playhouse located at 39 S. El Molino Avenue. For tickets and information visit PasadenaPlayhouse.org or call (626) 356-7529.

This piece appeared originally in the Tolucan Times on January 22, 2016.

Photos by Elias Feghali.