The Blogs: On Flying Above President Trump Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Comedian and TV host, Ellen DeGeneres, and her actor wife, Portia de Rossi, have placed their Montecito, California mansion up for sale and have flown to the United Kingdom’s rural posh Cotswolds region where they have relocated because they choose not to live in the United States anymore after Donald Trump’s second election as president.

(I seriously hope they take with them their absurd and irritating “Kind Science” cosmetics infomercials where their airbrushed pearly white skin seems to fade into the background.)

And that is actually the point. These two rich entitled white women with an inordinate amount of wealth can choose to pack up, fly away, and live abroad when the going gets rough here in the United States. Though many other people want to escape the expected incoming onslaught from the second Trump Reich, most of us do not have the privileged means to do so. And many of us do not have the interest in abandoning our country.

The fantasy or even the reality of flying away in hard times, though, is nothing new. The hoped-for escape many of us are dreaming of reminds me of the poignantly identifiable 1992 Hollywood film, “Radio Flyer,” with Mike (Elijah Woods as 11-years-old and Tom Hanks as adult and father of two boys), his younger 8-year-old brother Bobby (Joseph Mazzello), mother Mary (Lorraine Bracco), step-father “The King” (Adam Baldwin), and the boy’s trusted German Shepard, Shane (Vilos).

The adult Mike watches as his two young sons fight over an unkept promise one makes to the other. To teach them about the importance of keeping a promise, Mike tells the boys a story about a promise he made to his younger brother Bobby when they were about their ages.

It began in 1969. Following Mike and Bobby’s parents’ divorce, their mother packed the old station wagon with essential belongings, and having very little money, the three traveled the expansive country from their New Jersey home to stay with Mary’s aunt and uncle in Novato, California.

Soon after arriving, Mary met her future husband whom her children called “The King,” a construction worker. Following the wedding, the four people in this blended family moved to a modest suburban home with green grass on every lawn, a backyard, garbage can-lined alley ways, and plenty of other young children of the approximate ages of Mike and Bobby.

All seems idyllic until The King took Mike and Bobby on a fishing trip. Bobby was the first to catch a fish and began to reel it in. The King, who had been consuming large amounts of beer, slapped Bobby in the face for pulling too hard and breaking the fishing line letting the creature escape.

This was the first time the boys had any indication that The King was not the good man he had purported to be. A few days after arriving back home at night in their shared bedroom, Mike noticed dark bruise marks down Bobby’s back.

Bobby pleaded with Mike not to tell their mom because she was finally happy now with her new husband. Not to upset Mary, the boys promised to attempt to solve their problem of The King on their own.

The adult Mike, in his narration of the story of his younger self, told his sons what he refers to as “the seven lost secret fascinations and abilities” of children, which they have until they enter puberty, between their 12^th and 13^th years.

There “fascinations and abilities” are that animals can talk; your favorite blanket is woven from a fabric so mighty, that once pulled over your head, it becomes an impenetrable force field; nothing is too heavy to lift with the aid of a cape; your hand, held forefinger out and thumb up, actually fires bullets; jumping from any height with an umbrella is completely safe; monsters exist and can be both seen and done battle with; and the greatest, most special and regrettable loss of all is the ability to fly.

They see the monster in The King every day when he comes home, reaches into the refrigerator and grabs several beers, and retreats into the garage to listen to Hank Williams’s “Jambalaya (On the Bayou)” on his record player, while Mary is away from home throughout the day working double shifts as a server at a local diner.

The brothers ordered an anti-monster potion in the mail to keep The King at bay. When the experiment goes terribly wrong and explodes on the kitchen stove, his stepfather ultimately beats Bobby, hospitalizing him with heavy bruises and cuts. Shane took revenge by violently biting the man on his arm.

After spending some time in jail for child abuse, he came to Mary pleading to be taken back and promising never to drink or abuse again. He soon, though, violated his commitment and seriously injured Shane.

The boys then devised a plan for Bobby and Shane to escape this monster. Inspired by the story of a boy named Fisher who attempted to fly away on his bicycle over a cliff nicknamed “The Wishing Spot,” the brothers concocted a plan to transform their Radio Flyer toy wagon into an airplane in the hopes of uplifting Bobby and Shane away from harm.

They draw up an immaculate diagram with wings and an engine made from scavenged junk yard parts and an old lawn mower motor they found in an abandoned shed.

They secretly used The King’s tools they found in the garage and assembled all the parts into an elegant flying machine.

On the day Bobby and Share were to lift off, Mike left a farewell letter for their mother on the kitchen table telling her that Bobby and Shane would be leaving forever. The brothers then took their super-powered Radio Flyer to the cliff by night. The King, however, discovered their plans and drove his truck to the cliff. In his attempt to save his young pals, Shane jumped from the Flyer and ferociously attacked The King.

Bobby was able then to speed down the hill alone, knocking out The King with the wing of his plane. Toward the bottom of the hill, Bobby jubilantly soared into the air as Mike and Shane looked on in raptured amazement. Mary arrived at the scent with police officers who arrested The King.

Escaping his monster, Bobby is never seen again. Occasionally, he sent Mike and his mother, Mary, a postcard announcing his latest travels on his around the world victory excursion.

The older Mike concluded his story by telling his sons: “That’s how I remember it.”

So many questions remain, however. How can a couple of young boys build a flying machine that can circumnavigate the globe? Did this really happen? Did Bobby die? Did Bobby ever truly exist?

Though the film’s director, Richard Donner, told the press that the film should be taken at face value, many theories have been put forward claiming that the film can be understood as an allegory for overcoming bullies and tyrants. In addition, it is possible that there was never a younger brother Bobby, and that his stepfather actually brutalized Mike.

Being too painful to acknowledge, Mike, in psychological parlance, may have disassociated from the trauma by inventing Bobby, the younger and physically weaker brother, to absorb the brutality. Possibly, Bobby did once exist, but The King had killed him. Mike could have kept the story of the mighty Radio Flyer to preserve his beloved brother alive in his imagination.

I see a clear analogy in the plot of this film to the current era. Donald Trump, as the would be King (monster), has the potential of turning back many of the gains progressive people have made, especially since the end of his First Reich in 2021.

I disagree somewhat with the adult and father, Mike, character in the film who concludes that “the seven secret fascinations and abilities” of children disappear during puberty. Possibly, these can be retained, though transformed for all of us who are past our adolescence and even past our middle years.

I know monsters exist, and “they can be seen and done battle with.” Oh, maybe not the kind of ugly creatures in the horror movies and in science fiction, but, instead, the type that attempt to destroy our democratic institutions, the type that bully us from the religious pulpit and from the Congress to the Oval Office and back to the individual state legislatures.

The antidote, the anti-monster potions are composed of the good people who join together in coalition against much greater powers to save and expand our democracy for “we the people.”

Characters in “Radio Flyer” represent in microcosm the four subgroups in the larger drama of tyrannies and genocides perpetrated throughout history.

The King as the Perpetrators, the leaders (including the head(s) of state, oligarchs, and kleptocrats) along with their conspiratorial followers who perpetrate the oppression by neglect and/or intent and design.
Mary as the “Bystanders” who consciously or unconsciously know what the perpetrators were doing but remain in continual denial and do not intervene.
Mike as the “Upstanders” who consciously resist the perpetrators by intervening to improve conditions by fighting against the perpetrators.
Bobby as the marginalized scapegoated Victims who alone are powerless to improve their plight.

Regarding the German Holocaust, the “bystanders” might not have known at the time that they held the balance of power. If the “Bystanders” had the understanding and courage to transform themselves into “Upstanders,” in all likelihood, the Holocaust would never have become a reality.

I am reminded of the time under another would-be autocrat in the Oval Office. During Ronald Reagan’s presidency, in the face of the enormous threat of HIV/AIDS and an intransigent administration that refused to take effective action, we didn’t just sit back. Many of us consciously chose not to be among the bystanders. We mobilized.

The women’s health-care empowerment movement predates AIDS, as recorded in the ground-breaking work, Our Bodies, Our Selves. By the time the effects of HIV were first felt, a grassroots network of medical, social, political, and informational organizations had already been put in place. Some of us, who under other circumstances would probably not have engaged in political organizing, were spurred into activism by the crisis.

Queer and heterosexual people were in the forefront of a coordinated effort to provide care and support for people with HIV/AIDS. Existing women’s and LGBTQ community service centers expanded their services, while new centers were established dedicated to serving the needs of people with HIV/AIDS: people of all races, socioeconomic classes, sexual and gender identities, and their loved ones.

In addition, we must not overlook an irony: LGBTQ people developed safer sex strategies and educational campaigns, and we remain some of the leaders in prevention efforts. Just think about it: LGBTQ people created these strategies, and we continue to teach heterosexual people, all people, how to decrease their risks of infection.

We also faulted the very system on which U.S.-American medicine was based, and we declared that clinical drug trials and drug distribution procedures as then constructed were inhumane and highly exclusionary.

Subsequently, by 1986, militant direct-action groups of largely young people known as ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) organized. A network of local chapters quickly grew in over 120 cities throughout the world. I contributed my efforts to the Boston chapter.

Though independently developed and run, the network connected efforts under the theme “Silence = Death” beneath an inverted pink triangle turning upside down the insignia the Nazis forced men accused of homosexuality to wear in German concentration camps.

We reclaimed the pink triangle, signifying the ultimate stigmata of oppression, and turned it into a symbol of empowerment to lift people out of lethargy and denial and as a call to action to counter the crisis. We took care of the community in an era of government apathy, malevolence, and abandonment.

So here we are again, joining again to build the bulwarks to thwart the destruction of our democratic institutions as manifested in the ultra-right “Project 2025,” which takes its inspiration and program from exactly 100 years ago in 1925 in its original German edition.

Social justice educators, Pat Griffin and Bobbie Harro, have created their “Action Continuum” listing the full array of positions people take on a scale from “Perpetrating Oppression” on one extreme to “Confronting Oppression” on the other.

Actively Participating in the oppression
Denying, which enables the oppression
Recognizing the oppression but taking no action
Educating Self to learn more about the oppression
Educating Others in mutual understanding through dialogue
Supporting and Encouraging others also to become involved
Initiating positive change to reduce and Prevent further oppression

Now as the Trump regime stands ready to retake power, as in the past, he has whipped up destructive Category 5 hurricane force political winds, and he has left a collective national (possibly worldwide) traumatic stress disorder in its wake with his rhetoric, behavior, and policies.

Trump’s First Reich was a time of contentious, divisive, Tweet storming, and scandal-plagued era to the present in which the people of our nation suffer from a collective and all-consuming sense of PTSD (President Trump Stress Disorder).

He has twisted the acronym for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to DIE, as in death of a diverse, equitable, and inclusive society.

With most social change efforts, however, his forces have been readying to launch a newer and fiercer sustained backlash to turn back progressive social change.

Not only has Trump threatened to dismantle DEI initiatives, he has also warned of getting rid of the so-called “administrative state,” a term describing the power that some government agencies have to write, judge, and enforce their own laws. The far-right, led by Trump, claim that this “administrative state” has gone after Trump and his cronies throughout the Biden administration.

Once he referred to as “the swamp,” Trump and his conspirators allege that the deep state, a clandestine cabal from the federal government, especially within the FBI and CIA), have been plotting, in conjunction with high-level financial and industrial entities and leaders, to exert extreme power against anyone and any entity not aligned with its agenda.

In psychology, we refer to this as projection: accusing others of actions the accusers themselves are guilty of perpetrating.

So, all is not hopeless. Following a grieving process, we can pick ourselves and others up and organize the defenses, and even find joy in the process. We need not disassociate. We need not enter the realms of denial.

For in the immortal words of Benjamin Franklin,

“We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

Radio Flyer, February 21, 1992 (USA), Director: Richard Donner, Distributed by: Columbia Pictures