The next president elect of the American Psychoanalytic Association….. will not be me. I was defeated by Dr. Kerry Sulkowicz of New York City, a fine man who will do a fine job. To comfort myself in the aftermath of my loss I’ve been reading a book by another election non-winner, Mr. Andrew Yang. It’s called “The War Against Normal People,” and I recommend it to everybody.

Yang is a thinker. His book is full of ideas backed up with data that tell the story of what is happening in America today and what is likely to happen tomorrow if we don’t change course. The basic idea is that technology plus capitalism is creating an untenable situation that will become catastrophic if we don’t get our values straight. I look forward to Mr. Yang’s future contributions.

As for myself, I’ve decided that to keep peace with myself I’ve got to do all I can to make sure America has a future. That means what I can to remove the current occupant from the White House.

I hate to say it, I hate to think it and I hate to believe it, but…We truly are at risk of losing our democracy. I wish this was an exaggeration, or a distorted view emanating from a pessimistic, negativistic and depressive state.  I wish it was a joke. But Donald Trump is demonstrating that not only  can it happen here- it is happening here, right in front of our eyes. When I’m able to give this reality its due, it scares the hell out of  me.

As a wrote in my last blog entry, my own presidential run was a feat of emotional alchemy, an attempt to turn my pervasive feelings of rage, helplessness and guilt into positive social action.). So plan B, which is less grandiose and more realistic, is to do some grass roots work.

By work, I mean the work getting eligible voters to cast ballots.  One notable statistic from the election I just lost is that only 18% of those eligible to vote cast a ballot.   If we can’t do better than that in our national election, we are sunk.  But on the brighter side, it is seems like there may be a lot of votes that can be harvested that could turn things around if we put our efforts in that direction.

I hereby pledge to work in swing states like Michigan and Wisconsin, for whoever is the Democratic nominee. I also declare my intent to work so that Congresswoman Lauren Underwood is returned to the House of Representatives. I am making this public declaration to combat my natural tendency to pull the covers over my head or binge watch TV shows about Nazi takeovers.

If we can turn things around in this election, I hope whoever is elected will have a place for Mr.Yang, because IMHO he really gets it. As for now, may the force be with us.