The Babe of Crazytown

Adjusting to a very bad environment.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.com

The moment of clarity was so acute I said the words out loud:

“This is crazy.”

For the first time in my life, I understood the true nature of my circumstances. Under my mother’s roof, I was living in Crazytown.

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It was the first crack in the fortress wall of our relationship. Everything which transpired later was born of that morning’s realization.

Long-time readers know the facts: I took care of Bettie in her old age until she died in my arms at the age of 94. I commuted between New York and her home in Virginia every month to do so.

A couple of years before she died, I stopped. There was a period of several months when I stayed in New York. I broke off all communication with her. I did so out of a need for self-preservation.

I made my way back gingerly. I had no idea if I could stand being around her.

I first took Secret Service (my husband, not the agency) with me for one night, dipping my toe into the water between us. Eventually I was back to days, then weeks at a time.

She lived in the Victorian home where I grew up. It was divided into apartments before I was born, and provided her with income. It’s a very old house and she did as little to maintain it as possible. Staying there is like camping with less convenience.

It was a habitat peculiar to her, her own terrarium. If you were there, you lived in Bettie’s world. I could not move a box without permission. A lot of work needed to be done and I was powerless to do a thing. She experienced any suggestion of change as personal criticism.

I thought it was normal. I’d adjusted to the environment.

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On this particular morning, I woke up as usual. In the brief moment before opening my eyes, I took stock of how I was feeling.

Awful.

Mornings are difficult for me to begin with, but this was different. It was depression and true despair, immediate and terrible. I looked at my phone. It was after 6 am. I was late getting her tea.

How I felt that day is very similar to what it feels like to wake up now under the Trump administration.

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My mother was loved by many, including me. She could be an absolute delight. There will never be anyone like her.

And I want to be clear that Donald Trump has none of my mother’s charm.

Even so, I was the only person on earth who could stand being in her continual presence longer than 48 hours—actually it’s closer to 24; my brother might back me up on this. She was so abrasive it was like being sandpapered to death in her presence.

I had a lot of practice at surviving her personality, so I spent the most time with her.

I knew none of it was normal, intellectually. If everyone woke up and felt as badly as I did, the world would cease to operate. We’d all lie down somewhere and let ourselves die.

But I didn’t know how to fix it. Just like I don’t know how to fix the United States.

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On that day, my eyes adjusted to the light, and I looked at what was in front of me.

Cobwebs. Peeling paint. Dust. And the corner of a whiteboard, with one of Bettie’s illustrations of the Golden Section done in colored markers, jammed about six inches from my pillow.

Suddenly, it was clear.

I was living in Crazytown.

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Just like I lived in Crazytown with my mother, we’re living in Crazytown under Trump.

I spent a lot of time yesterday trying to find out if any of my Representatives in Washington have said anything publicly about Donald Trump unleashing the United States military on its own citizens.

Because, you know, it seems like they should.

I called offices and tried to pin down interns.

Senator Gillibrand’s office told me that any comment she’d make would be found under the Press Releases section of her website. So I went there.

Nothing.

Senator Schumer’s office didn’t even answer the phone. But I did go to his website to see if he’d put out a press release about what’s happening.

Nope.

Then I went to George Latimer’s office, who is my Representative in Congress.

Nothing on his website either.

I need to pause and give credit where credit is due: Congressman Latimer did Tweet something on X. And he did so before I contacted him and asked if he’d like to make a comment on the record about what was happening.

He and I have not agreed about how to handle Donald Trump. But he has been communicative with me, and during this utterly impossible time, I do appreciate that. It’s certainly more than I can say for my Senators.

He got back to me in a timely fashion, and sent me a copy of what he’d posted to social media:

The Marine Corps is a combat force, not a domestic police unit. Their mission is to protect America against external threats. Only in the rarest of cases should they be deployed domestically - certainly not for the purpose of a President who seeks to expand his power over every aspect of American life. This is what Putin does, not what a Patriot does. We should be rightly concerned that this is only the beginning of the attempt to usurp local police authority and subject every policing decision to the control of the Trump White House.

Yes. Agreed.

Now what?

Anybody?

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Apparently, we have become so adjusted to Trump’s brand of crazy, it’s no longer abnormal.

By people, I mean the Fourth Estate and every member of Congress, not to mention the voters who still support him.

I dunno, but it seems to me that if Hillary Clinton were running a meme coin business out of the Oval Office, it would be the headline in every paper in the United States—for months. And as my friend Paul Slansky pointed out on social media yesterday, not one reporter asked the president about the insurrection on January 6^th as he was calling protesters insurrectionists yesterday in the Oval Office.

Why don’t reporters ask him tougher questions? Why do media outlets consider settling the absurd lawsuits he brings against them? Why do lawyer’s offices bend to his whims? Why do universities? Why, why, why are we letting our democracy become an authoritarian regime?

Because we live in Crazytown. It’s my mother’s house all over again.

Humans can adjust to almost anything. Of all the things to which we could adjust, Trump has got to be the worst.

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My mother could be a bully. It’s a trait she shared with Trump. In order to survive the world, they must have their way.

The most important thing to remember about bullies is they’re big fat babies. Bullying is their technique to ensure we will continue catering to them.

Just as the house was my mother’s terrarium, so is the United States Donald Trump’s. He has to have it exactly the way he wants it, or he throws a tantrum.

Just like terrible parents, we have given into him. We have let the baby boss us.

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When considering how to deal with Trump, it might be helpful to ask some hypothetical questions.

1) What if you had a baby (we’ll call your baby Baby, capital B) and you let Baby have his way all the time? What if instead of food containing nutrients, Baby drank Coca-Cola and ate Rolos all day?

2) What if Baby demanded a phone at age three, and was allowed to stay up as late playing video poker?

3) What if Baby didn’t like being potty trained, it didn’t suit him? What if Baby just crapped and peed where he wanted, and laughed at you while you were cleaning up after him?

4) What if you decided one day you’d like to have a dinner party at your house with grownups?

You couldn’t. What would you do with Baby?

You’re in for a surprise. Because until you decided you’d like to have a few adults over, you never realized that this was Baby’s house, not yours.

You used to own the house. Legally, you are still Baby’s parents; just like the Constitution still says We the people instead of Donald Trump Says So.

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Well, Baby made it to the White House.

Twice.

And Baby has real soldiers, not toy, and a lot of money at his disposal, plus nuclear weapons. And Stephen Miller. This is one dangerous Baby.

It seems like a good time to point out that Trump has been in power for five months, and the California National Guard has been deployed against its own citizens, with the Marines on the way.

Meanwhile, if the Senate approves the Big Beautiful Baby Bill, the budget for ICE will increase 364%.

I am no economist, but I can add. Our entire country is headed straight for martial law because Baby said so.

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The parents of Baby decide to go to therapy, because they realize Baby has made their lives a big fat mess. But what to do? Nothing works with Baby.

Any therapist worth their salt will tell them to set boundaries.

Boundaries: (n., plural noun) a line that marks the limits of an area; a dividing line.

Establish boundaries with Baby and stick to them, the therapist says.

Mkay.

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How do you set limits?

If Baby is anything like my mother, Baby will laugh at your attempts. My mother never met a boundary she didn’t consider a personal challenge through which to crash.

I’ll tell you the secret to setting boundaries:

When you set them with someone, it is not their responsibility to keep them, it is your responsibility to keep them.

It’s why I left my mother. I realized I was a fool for thinking she’d change.

I took responsibility for the boundary and removed myself from the situation, and cut her off cold. If you think it’s harsh, I could not give a fig. I know what I endured before making the decision to leave, and it was one of the best of my life.

It was second perhaps only to my decision not to have children. I don’t want a stinking Baby.

Guess what? My mother finally learned I had limits.

Boundaries are for us to enforce, not them. If we are invaded by another nation, we don’t post on social media,

“France crossed my line! I hate her!”

We kick France out.

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Here’s the thing about politics, but also about life: you cannot govern (or live) worried that people won’t like you.

I understand how this entire mess happened, perhaps better than most. My mother’s voodoo was strong, and she had me believing all sorts of crazy for a long time.

Donald Trump’s voodoo is strong. But we are forgetting that Donald Trump isn’t in charge, we are. The nation belongs not to one president, but its citizens. And when its president starts calling the military out on us while usurping the authority of a state’s governor, this ain’t America.

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Bettie died in January of 2024.

While she was alive, I sometimes fantasized about locking Donald Trump in a room with her. I have no doubt that after 24 hours, she’d come out with a victorious smile and he’d be weeping in a corner. I envisioned a scene like in Silence of the Lambs, when Hannibal Lecter speaks to Miggs all night through the cell’s wall.

Trump was no match for my mother.

But alas, she is not here to deal with him, and I wasn’t able how to figure out how to get her in a room with him while she was.

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Because we don’t have Bettie at our disposal, here are some ideas I have for getting us the hell out of Crazytown:

Democrats need to start talking to Republicans and asking them questions like,

So you’d be okay if a Democrat in office were doing this? Because if not, you need to speak up. Today.

And when they don’t speak up, Democrats need to tell the American people. They need to say specifically who they reached out to, questions they asked them, and note crickets in response.

Receipts, people. We need receipts. Republicans don’t fear us, and they need to.

And Democratic leadership—whoever you are?

DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP NEEDS TO LEAD A GENERAL STRIKE AGAINST THIS ADMINISTRATION.

What’s happening is that serious.

Trump is going to have a difficult time organizing the Marines to go house to house and yank us from our couches because we refuse to go to work. It’s peaceful protest. We need to shut this economy down.

Because if you are a Democrat in office under the delusion that you can twiddle your thumbs until the 2026 midterms: resign. You are too deluded to be in office.

Our terrarium is no longer habitable.