Category: Uncategorized

Tips to Manage the Loss of the Presidency

Accept your limitations. You are not God, even if your supporters sometimes treat you as one.

The pain of the loss will be great at first but gradually will ease.

Talk to yourself. ‘I made mistakes, tried the best I could given what I have.’

‘I forgive myself for all my imperfections and promise to do better.’

Seek the company of your loved ones. Thank them for all their help.

Remind yourself that you are one of a very select group of people.

As soon as you learn that the vote favored your opponent, concede. This is very important. To be graceful in loss. Call the winner, wish them the best and offer your assistance. The nation will remember you fondly for it.

If you begin to think hostile thoughts, seek the advice of psychiatrists/psychologists from Walter Reed Hospital. You are human. Human beings get angry in loss.

Do not make any rash decisions. For the sake of the nation, consult and consult again before making choices.

Exercise. Go for long walks. Dance with your partner. Sing your favorite song.

You will laugh again. At yourself and at the world.

There is life after the presidency.

Watch comfort foods. They can pack the pounds very quickly.

When or if foreign leaders call to express sympathy, ask them to support the new President.

Consider an executive order establishing the office of the psychiatrist/psychologist to the President. A part time job. A few hours a week. So the incumbent can drop by to chat about whatever is on their mind. Records of such sessions to be kept confidential for 100 years.

Good luck.

Oscar Valdes    oscarvaldes.net    oscar valdes@widehumr

Try For A Graceful Exit, Mr Trump

I hope that it is becoming clearer to you that the end is near. And it isn’t Joe and Kamala that are defeating you. It is you, defeating yourself.

You took a hammer to yourself and beat up your presidency. With the whole world watching.

On the surface you were gloating in the adoration of your followers at your rallies, but you knew you were hammering down that chisel to deepen the divisions between us.

And you couldn’t stop yourself. Or chose not to.

You could have said, ‘there are so many talented people in this country, all of whom could make an important contribution to my own view, why am I thinking that it is only the side I’m comfortable with that I should be seeking counsel from?’

It was such a basic question.

Simply to ask it would have been an act of moral and intellectual courage.

Did you ever ask it? Ever?

The problems we’ve been facing have been thorny ones. Dealing with them has been deferred by earlier Presidents, but when your turn came and the going got tough, you decided to file for bankruptcy. Which is what you’re familiar with. Debits going up faster that credits?

File for bankruptcy.

You’re not comfortable dealing with people who have dissenting views.

They upset you too easily. And rather than process that dissent in the effort to find common ground, you get angry.

Processing dissent with others calls for a willingness to consider that it is you who may be wrong. That maybe it is you not having the balanced take on the given matter. Which is okay because none of us are perfect. And simply posing the question will move us along on the road to reaching the greater truth.

You can’t file for bankruptcy when dealing with national matters. There is no such option.

People who voted for you thought, ‘well, he’s been a businessman – made and lost millions – he will know how to lead us.’ As if it was all about debits and credits. All about accounting ledgers. In their despair to find solutions, your supporters settled for the easy choice.

And you became President.

But leadership in its enlightened view is not about debits and credits but about guiding human beings, stirring up their energies and directing them to work with their brothers and sisters toward common goals.

Leadership, in its enlightened view, is not about ‘I am better than you’. Rather, it is about finding the best in each other.

To do that you have to know who you are. To do that you have to have struggled to find the best in you.

You started on that road a long time ago but then stopped. But a leader for a complex nation as ours cannot stop the process of self discovery. Stopping is filing for bankruptcy.

The leading of this nation does not allow for bankruptcy filing when facing difficult problems.

Take the matter of race. You could have said to your followers, ‘folks… there’s all of us in here, White, Black, Native Americans, Indian, Asian, Hispanics and shadings in between, and like the great variety of races there’s a great variety of opinions, and during my administration there will be an open debate on everything… and I will be listening, so I can grow wiser and my judgment becomes more balanced. I ask you, please join me in this journey of self discovery.’

But you couldn’t do it. Or you refused to.

Now time has passed and history has been written.

All of us will be learning from your mistakes as we learn from ours. We have to if we want to be the better nation we’ve always wanted to be.

As you come to the end of your term, please try to find in yourself to be graceful in defeat.

Look at it this way. Being graceful in defeat is a way of being kind to yourself. As if you were saying, ‘I tried my best, now let others try their best.’

We know you like to fight. That has been clear. But you have yet to fight the greater fight, the one that will let the better you, shine through.

Good luck, Mr Trump.

Oscar Valdes    

oscarvaldes.net    oscar valdes@widehumr

You’re a Tribal Leader, Mr Trump. Give it Up!

Accept it. You don’t have the capacity to be a President to all of us.

It’s not in you.

You tried.

You can be a leader to a segment of the nation, and even then, only a temporary leader, because the really transformational leaders are able to connect with their followers so they can learn what it is that has held them back and then do something about it. Truly transformational leaders empower people.

But you can’t do that. It’s beyond you.

So let someone else do it.

You gave it a try. You have left your imprint in the nation’s history books. An imprint that we have to pay close attention to so we won’t repeat the same mistake.

You’re a gifted man in many ways, but not to be our President.

Stay with what you’re good at. Television, for instance.

You made money on ‘The Apprentice.’ Why not try a new show and call it ‘The President.’? (first proposed on blog of 10/6/20)

You would get a chance to rewrite history to suit your purposes and make a buck as you do.

You could do several episodes on your version of what led to your impeachment. And you could have Putin, Xi, Erdogan, Duterte, the Saudi prince come in to make guest appearances and tell us about their own version of history.

(Poor history, it gets beat up and twisted around every day)

Now, if you really wanted to run for office again, then you have to be willing to do some learning.

Try a run for governor somewhere. How about Texas? They may want you. They are Red enough. And the present governor may not mind becoming your second in command.

See, you took too big a leap running for President, got lucky but ended up burdening us with your poor choices.

Now that you’ve shown all your cards, whoever chooses you next will know exactly what they’re getting into.

If you go with Texas, then you’ll have Ted Cruz as one of your senators. The both of you can have breakfast together every Sunday. Pretty cool, right? And you’d have miles and miles of border where you can go and put up all kind of walls to keep people from coming in. Maybe you’ll even find a way to make money at that, too.

Since you’re a vigorous man, you could be governor until you’re tired of it.

So, to sum up, yes, you’re a leader, but a tribal one. And that’s okay. For a while. Because even a tribe gets tired of not learning something that will empower them.

One request. Please do us a favor: be mature and restrained when you’re asked to vacate the White House so Biden can move in. We will remember you more fondly.

Good luck. Wishing you the best in your next adventure.

Oscar Valdes. Oscarvaldes.net. Follow in Twitter – oscar valdes@widehumr

What Will Bring Us Together?

The divisions between us have existed all along, but they had been neglected by our leaders.

Trump saw his chance and made the most of it.

Crafty fellow that he is, he assessed the circumstances and thought to himself, ‘I can do something with that. I can stir that pot to my advantage.’ And oh, he did it so well.

One for the record books.

There has been much pain and acrimony from all that the man has put us through, but he may have done us a favor.

The favor of exposing how vulnerable we are to the devices of a demagogue. Demagogue, as in a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims, to gain power (Webster’s).

Yes, he did it.

But we can learn from it.

Ideally, we should start on that process right away.

Biden has made it a chief theme of his campaign. Overcoming our divisions.

It won’t be easy but it’s a journey we should embrace.

It would require a little self reflection, an acknowledging that no one owns the truth, and that in compromise lies the key to a successful resolution of our major differences. Never mind the small ones. There will be time for those later.

Having a leader steering us through the healing process will be essential. Biden is uniquely qualified for the role of Healer in chief. He’s been preparing for the task a lifetime and is willing to invest the years he has left to guide us through the process.

We should take him up on it.

Of course, we can always ignore him, hoping for yet another demagogue to show up down the road – there’s no shortage of demagogues in waiting – but we would be prolonging our pain.

There is, however, another way to come together as a nation. It is cruder and more traumatic but it works too. That is to wait for an outside force to threaten us.

Nazi Germany and the Axis nations united us. We knew that we had better pull together or, eventually, we would end up being their vassals.

There is no prospect for another Nazi Germany today. And Russia is starting a process of renewal.

So which nation could threaten us into uniting? China.

They are rising fast and aim to be the leader of the world. Why not? A divided America only makes it easier for them.

So wouldn’t it be less painful and more productive to go the Biden way?

Settling our differences without an outside threat would be a sign of national maturity.

We can do it. We ought to.

And this is the time

Oscar Valdes is the author of Psychiatrist for A Nation and other books. Available on Amazon.

Oscarvaldes.net

The End is Near

For Trump.

And a rebirth is fast approaching for the nation.

Donald J Trump came into the job by appealing to a section of the country that had felt ignored. Once elected he should have called for unity, for the start of a dialogue that would begin to bring us together.

But he could not do it.

I know he looked into himself wondering if he had the strength to do the job.

I know he looked and looked again.

And yet, all along, the strength was hiding in a corner of his soul.

To find it he needed light.

That light was the courage to see the truth.

But he could not turn on the light.

It is sad that a nation as gifted as ours, has to go through four years of bitter dissent, four years of continuous acrimony, because our elected leader could not rise to the task of truly becoming our leader.

To do so he would have had to say,

‘I have stirred enmity in my followers to rise to victory, but now I should help them understand the root of such enmity, and I must do so even if I, myself, don’t understand it.’

A president has at his disposal all the wisdom of the nation’s scholars, and he could’ve easily called on them to help him find clarity, to assist him in learning what he did not know.

But he chose not to.

And it was a conscious choice. To choose darkness rather than light.

But you have to not be free as a person to choose darkness,

You have to not be free to not muster the courage to face the truth,

And so it is that the man wearing the mantle of leader of the Free World

Is not a free man himself.

It is too much to expect that our leaders will be wise in all things, but it isn’t too much to expect that they ask others to educate them where they are ignorant.

Let us call it intellectual honesty.

If it is not there, then they are not fit to lead.

Oscar Valdes is the author of Psychiatrist for A Nation and other titles. Available on Amazon.

Oscarvaldes.net

Trump May Need Help

There are reasons to be keenly observant of his mental condition. The President has recently made wild allegations, calling Kamala Harris a communist and spoken of indicting Joe Biden. There was also talk of bringing the troops from Afghanistan to be better able to fight China.

Is he becoming paranoid?

While he has been known to be unpredictable, the situation is now different because he is recovering from CoVid 19, a condition that affects the brain. He appears to be bouncing back, but he’s still infected and is presently taking steroids, which are known to impair mental functioning.

Trump is a vigorous man with a great deal of energy that puts him in the hypomanic category.

But he is also under tremendous pressure, both financially and politically.

The political factor is the heaviest burden.

He is behind significantly in the polls and the gap is growing.

His performance in office has been poor and yet he nurtures the fiction that he has been a great President. The very likely defeat on November 3rd would be a tremendous blow to his already battered ego. It is reasonable to believe that he is already anticipating the loss but has much trouble accepting it which increases the possibility of his striking out impulsively.

As things stand, consideration ought to be given to tapering him off the steroid, if it hasn’t been done already, while simultaneously considering the addition of an antimanic agent.

I am not sure if the staff at Walter Reed, who has competently taken care of him, has consulted with their department of Psychiatry. If not, this should be done as soon as possible.

Even if the President would be opposed to an examination, if a consensus of psychiatrists deemed it appropriate, such recommendation needs to be made public, given the enormous consequences for the nation of a poor decision on Mr Trump’s part.

Meanwhile, an independent body of experts, drawn from our prestigious medical centers, such as Stanford, the Massachusetts General Hospital and the Mayo Clinic, ought to be convened to monitor his behavior from afar and give their considered opinion when indicated.

The stakes are very high.

We must act.

Oscar Valdes

Oscarvaldes.net

Harris Beats Pence

In last night’s debate, Kamala Harris attacked early and kept it up through the 90 minute exchange. She did it elegantly, firmly and with a smile for good measure.

The most consistent feature in Pence’s performance was his long windedness, repeatedly going over his time limit, causing the very polite lady moderator to keep insisting, ‘Please Mr Vice President, please,’ which Pence kept ignoring as if entitled to it, no doubt making sure that the audience knew that he would copy Mr Trump’s style, regardless of propriety.

It reminded me of the time Pence paid a visit to the Mayo Clinic some months ago. While escorted by a group of doctors who all wore masks, he chose not to.

Something about the Trump Pence administration and science. Oil and water.

‘Biden is raising your taxes!’ said Pence last night, as if he had found the magic words to bury his rival.

Harris calmly replied, looking straight into the camera, ‘Biden is raising taxes on people earning over 400 thousand.’

Pence again, ‘Biden is raising your taxes!’

‘Biden is raising taxes on people earning over 400 thousand.’ repeated Harris, unruffled.

In response to a question about fighting systemic racism in America, Harris gives a clear answer. Yes, the Biden administration was making it a high priority.

Pence replies, ‘There’s no systemic racism in the country…’

No systemic racism? Which country are you living in Mr Pence?

Harris was steady, confident, purposeful. The democratic side may not have all the answers but they are willing to work with the opposition to find them.

That is not what the Trump Pence administration has done and is the reason they have botched their chance at making a difference.

Harris had many salient moments, one of which was when she proudly defended the Obamacare health program’s coverage of people with preexisting conditions. Trump Pence have fought the program during their entire term, while offering nothing better in its place. But whatever they came up with, people with preexisting conditions would lose out.

So Harris made her point. ‘People with preexisting conditions? That is you (the viewer) they’re coming after, yes, you,’ she said with verve.

Whatever Pence said in reply was unforgettable except for his going over his speaking limit, finally prompting the very kind moderator to say, ‘Please Mr Vice President, we have agreed to rules to be able to hold this debate,’ or something to that effect.

Surely Trump was proud of him.

And so it is, folks. Twenty six days left before election day. One hundred and four till Biden Harris are inaugurated.

We’re making it happen. You and me. And if you can, watch the debates. It’s not the same to read about it. Writers have filters of their own. Please vote. And God bless America.

Oscar Valdes

Oscarvaldes.net

No More Stimulus! Until After I Get Elected.

Powell, the Federal Reserve Chairman whose monetary policy has played a crucial and salutary role in softening the economic effects of the pandemic, had said earlier that the absence of further fiscal assistance would severely slow the nation’s recovery.

Then yesterday, fresh from ‘deep’ introspective moments while hospitalized at Walter Reed Hospital for a few days, Trump rebuffed Powell, saying there would be no further fiscal aid until after the election.

The message is clear. Elect me and you’ll have the money.

It’s the message of a drowning man.

The message of a man who could not find a way to govern the nation, a man who has only 105 days left in the White House and only 27 days before he watches on his adored Fox News, that Biden/Harris beat him soundly.

Soundly. As in not by a thin margin.

Meanwhile, there will be privations and hardship for those who have lost jobs that are not coming back as the economy restructures.

But their troubles are not Trump’s concern.

Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, are mum about their leader’s whims. They’re hoping against hope that Trump will pull off another miracle. But it won’t happen. We’ve had it.

Twenty seven days from now, after the vote comes out in favor of Biden/Harris, these same lawmakers, no longer feeling bound to the president, will rush to stand up against him and join with the democrats to pass a delayed stimulus bill and so stave off a grim Christmas.

Trump’s decision to not move forward with the stimulus bill is petty. Manipulative. Cold.

He’s going down because of the cumulative weight of his poor decisions and doesn’t mind piling on yet another burden on people without jobs.

But people who will not have enough will remember. Remember Trump and his lawmakers.

Oscar Valdes

Oscarvaldes.net

PS: Trump, sinking as he is in the eyes of the nation, cannot resist the chance of seeing how the markets react to his decisions. It feeds his vanity. He will need to really feed it, though, because the election results will deliver much grief.

A New TV Show. Trump’s Next Act.

I watched the president’s return to the White House last night, following his short stay at Walter Reed Hospital. I saw him walk up the stairs to the balcony. If there was, perhaps, a hint of uncertainty to his movements, he was now summoning all the determination he could muster. This was a moment he had been looking forward to. He came up to the center of the balcony and stopped to face the cameras. The moment was dramatic. His head up, he wanted to exude confidence. He had been engaged in fierce hand to hand combat with the lethal coronavirus – with a still uncertain outcome – but there he was, undiminished. Like a good soldier, he was returning to duty. He had climbed those stairs unassisted. Proudly. As he stood looking out, twice he fumbled with the buttons of his jacket waiting for the precise moment. He breathed. And then he reached up and took off his mask. Yes. Even though he’s still in the midst of his struggle, he had an image of himself he had vowed to preserve. And no, the Coronavirus would not defeat him and he wanted the world to see it. No matter how vicious Corona might be, Trump would prevail.

His followers surely cheered. His detractors surely gasped. Virologists and health scientists surely squirmed.

So now, what?

First of all, my best wishes for the president to recover promptly. And thank you to the wonderful medical staff at Walter Reed Hospital. The nation appreciates your efforts.

But Trump knows he has only 106 days left in the White House and that Biden will be taking over on January 20th.

During his tenure, Trump was not able to figure out how to be an effective leader but he will keep trying. He is 74 years old and vigorous. He likes to wheel and deal, so why not think about what to do next?

While at Walter Reed, forced to stay in that suite, not tweeting or tweeting less, he did a little thinking. And he figured out his next step. He will start a new show. If it hadn’t been for the exposure he got on ‘The Apprentice’, he would not have been elected president. So now he has to come up with a different act. He reminded himself that he is, primarily, a showman. He has always been a showman and he will forever be one. So he hit upon this new idea. As soon as he leaves the White House, he will return to TV with a new show aptly titled, ‘The President.’ That’s right. Once a week, broadcast from studios at Mar-A-Lago or the Trump Tower in New York, he will beam out to the world an inside look at the presidency of the United States. He will reenact episodes of his term, like the events that led to his impeachment, so as to set the record straight. Trump figures it’s in the airwaves and on Twitter that truth now lives and he will put his truth out there. Imagine all the people he met, how eager they will be to make an appearance on the show. Why, they will knock themselves over for the chance. He might even have Putin do a guest appearance. And Xi Jinping, the Saudi prince, maybe even Kim Jong-Un, god knows he needs the income. In fact, Trump might reenact the talks he had with him, to set the record straight that he nearly got Kim to disarm. Almost. And so on.

And it will be Trump’s way of saying to the world, ‘I’m still the president. The Chinese, upset with the tariffs I’d imposed, conspired with Joe Biden and the treacherous democrats to unseat me. I have not yet found the proof of it but I’m getting there. But I shall return. And yes, I’m already running for president in 2024.’ Hallelujah. The Lord have mercy.

He has said that ‘The Apprentice’ was making him 3 million dollars a day. Now imagine what ‘The President’ will be netting. And the show will be broadcast all over the world. Even in the smallest villages in Africa, Trump’s image will appear.

He anticipates the revenues to be fantastic, which will help offset the huge personal debt that is coming due very soon. But he’s always found a way to borrow to keep afloat. And with the new show he will be doing it again. Deutsche Bank get ready.

Additionally, for the sake of his next run for the White House, his show will be a weekly commentary on all that the Democrats are doing wrong, because yes, they are the bane of this country. He will make it clear how things should be done. Anyway, in the show he’s in complete control. He gets to write the script for the other side.

So Trump will lose in November because the nation cannot stand him any longer. We’re done.

We’ve seen through the act. We’ve learned.

But he will live on, who knows for how many years given his sturdy constitution and the magic of makeup.

He will live on, principally, because his supporters have got hooked on the love he gives them, never mind the alternate reality he sells them.

The rest of us, will take note and switch channel.

God bless America.

Oscar Valdes

Oscarvaldes.net

107 Days to the Inauguration of Joe Biden.

A new dawn is upon us, a new set of possibilities, a new chapter in our history.

Every one of us can be part of this moment. It is up to us to be a participant.

Our future is in our hands.

What we saw in the first presidential debate in Cleveland – likely the only one we will have – was reflective of what has happened during the past 4 years.

We need dialogue in the nation, dialogue between Americans no matter how far apart in views we may be.

We have not had that for the past 4 years. We have not because our leader did not make it a priority.

We have not because our leader is not suited for it.

Trump has fallen short when it comes to confronting thorny matters.

On July 16th 2018, when sharing a stage with Putin in Helsinki, he was asked by a reporter to confront Putin with the ample evidence gathered by our intelligence services that there had been Russian interference in the 2016 elections. But Trump replied that, while he believed American intelligence reports, he also believed Putin’s denial of involvement.

What does that mean?

If you cannot confront a foe, then, what can we trust you to do?

Trump could not reach across the enormous divide in our land and say to the opposing parties,

‘We have to put aside the anger and hatred that is consuming us,’

‘We have to stop thinking in black and white.’

‘No one owns the truth, no one.’

‘We all contribute to this great land and so all must be heard.’

‘And I will be the great mediator between the divided parts of this land, because I am convinced that if we learn how to talk, then we will find the fullness of our strength.’

But he couldn’t do it.

He could not because it is not in him.

That’s his truth. But he does not own up to it. He does not come clean with himself and with us.

As a result we are less than we can be.

And that has to stop.

How do we stop it? By voting for change.

It is our task to do so, our national duty.

You don’t have to believe in what I say nor I in what you say, but we must concede that we have to talk to each other to find out where we can agree.

It is up to a thoughtful leader to bring us to the table and to moderate such dialogue.

Trump didn’t even try.

Biden is committed to the task.

Oscar Valdes

Oscarvaldes.net