Who signed up for this roller coaster ride?

I haven’t ridden a roller coaster since the late 1980s or thereabouts. It was the Loch Ness Monster at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Virginia, and I can still see the yellow-painted track and hear the clickety-clack-clack as we chugged to the top of the first hill.

Being deathly afraid of heights, the climb scared the hell out of me and I had to close my eyes near the top, but once the ride started, I didn’t have time to be afraid. I actually liked it and wanted to go again, but the line was too long and we moved on to something else.

I’m riding a roller coaster again today. It’s called the Great White Trump-a-POTUS, and it still scares the hell out of me. The difference is, after this ride is over, I definitely won’t want to do it again.

It started last November 8, when I fell asleep while watching Hillary Clinton slowly chug her way upward toward becoming President of the United States, and took its first big drop a couple of hours later when I awoke to learn that Donald Trump had actually won.

Since then, Trump’s alternative presidency has been a series of emotional ups and downs – just like riding the Loch Ness Monster – only the stakes are much higher now, because his presidency is driving people crazy worrying about their future. Every day, it seems, we hop on another roller coaster. First we go up, and then we go down. We go up…then down…then up…then down…

For example:

We started out riding the Photoshop Special Rainy Day (or was it?) Invisible Crowd Inauguration Coaster. Remember? After failing to find anybody important who wanted to perform at his inauguration, Alternative President Trump looks out at the paltry crowd that gathered for the ceremony and declares it to be the biggest crowd in the history of the universe. Everybody mocks him but it’s okay because we figure he won’t be president for long so it doesn’t really matter. It’s great fun laughing at him, so up we go. Wheeeee!

But then he gets into office and starts nominating cabinet members who are so colossally unqualified it takes our breath away, like when a coaster finally crests that first hill and starts back down at rocket speed. Whoooo, we scream! They want to destroy the very agencies they are selected to lead. We’re not laughing now. We’re just depressed. Then Trump starts signing executive orders that favor polluters, bear killers, unscrupulous money managers, shady businesses and science deniers and overturning a lot of the good things that President Obama did. We wonder…can this really be happening? Down and down we go!

Meanwhile, Democrats in the Senate and a few Republicans are riding the Big Green (With Envy) Merrick Garland Gator. On this ride, politicians say they’re going to oppose Trump’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court. They plan to “Garland” the nomination the way the Republicans did to President Obama’s candidate. That’ll serve ’em right for trying to steal the seat, we think as we begin to climb, but when the time comes to vote, Trump’s man is confirmed anyway. Oh, no! Not him! He’s only 49, so we’re probably stuck with him for 30-40 years. So much for gay rights, women’s rights, voting rights…. Another ‘up’ turns ‘down’ in a hurry.

Then there’s the Triple Whammy Upsy-Downsy Obama-Rama Health Care Coaster. This one starts out with a pledge to repeal the Obamacare health insurance program. Oooh, downer! Then the alternative president meets with Obama and decides he likes the good parts and wants to keep them. Up we go! Then the bill gets drafted and it’s worse than anyone can imagine. O-M-G! But wait…it’s so bad it never gets brought up for a vote. Thank goodness, my insurance is safe! And now we learn that Trump and his minions are coming back with another bill that’s even worse than the first one. Down, down we go once again!

Or how about the “Wrongway” Peachfuzz Here Comes My Armada Upsidaisium Coaster? On this ride, the administration campaigns on a platform to get us out of foreign military engagements (this is good), but the first chance he gets, Trump fires 59 Tomahawk missiles into an abandoned Syrian airstrip after warning the Russians and Syrians to evacuate the premises. Down we go again! He does this to distract us from his administration’s collusion with Russia by proving he’s not a Putin puppet. But alas, Trump gets so orgasmic after blowing something up that he drops a motherbugger bomb on Afghanistan for no apparent reason, except to kill 36 ISIS fighters at a cost of $444,444.44 per death. Oh boy, we’re really descending!

Now drunk with power, he threatens North Korea with an “armada” to fix the nuclear weapons problem. Oh hell no! But it’s okay, because the ships are actually sailing south toward Australia and Trump is mocked for looking like Captain Peachfuzz from the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons. Nuclear war is averted! We’re climbing again! All is well! At least for now.

I could go on like this all day, but the message should be getting clear. As Americans, we don’t have to like our president or agree with his policies, but we should be able to trust him to apply those policies clearly and consistently under a rational plan with an expectation of success and a carefully crafted end game. At least you can try to make plans that way. Besides, the whole world is watching us, so irrationality and inconsistency are not our friends.

We shouldn’t have to go to bed every night feeling good and wake up feeling bad – or vice versa – based on the tweets and taunts and temper tantrums of a narcissistic child-like president with no belief system, no world view and no moral compass who will whine, complain, lie, deny, bully, pout and throw things unless he gets his way.

I read recently that 35 noted psychiatrists believe that Trump is mentally ill and unfit to be the president of the United States. But here’s the problem: He doesn’t care what they think because to him all criticism is fake anyway. He is, after all, still the president regardless of their opinion … and while he may be certifiably insane, it’s the rest of us who are gradually losing our minds.