Every time one of my Facebook “friends” try to politically cut me down or make a snarky comment on MY FACEBOOK PAGE, I can’t help but think about my in-laws.

“Trust no one except your own.”

I heard this sentiment from my Holocaust surviving mother-in-law in her thick German accent hundreds, no; thousands of times.

She’s gone from us.  Almost all of the witnesses to that unspeakable annihilation are gone.

I often wonder what she would say about the current state of politics.

I doubt that she would be surprised at all.

“Our neighbors turned us in. People we thought were our friends.”

He knew the “officials” he dealt with, my father-in-law would tell me. They’d attended the same schools, and knew each other’s parents, brothers, sisters.

“None of that mattered,” he would mutter. “I was their enemy,” he would state so matter of factly.

Am I the enemy?

Would my neighbors and friends turn me in if someone high-up in government asked them to?

I know in my ordered mind, that will never happen to me.

But then again, my in-laws thought the same thing.

Us vs. them.

Sometimes I read the hateful posts my Facebook friends share, and I cringe.

Some posts are a bridge too far, so those authors got the unfriending ax.

Other posts, I simply hide.

But is that enough?

My husband was born in 1950, here in the US of A.

If he had been born to Fritzi and Fred just a few years earlier, in Vienna, he would surely be dead.

Political hatred gone wild.

I feel sick to my stomach.

I keep looking back on the past two weeks and asking myself is this for real or am I smack in the middle of one of those spine-chilling Hollywood movies about the disintegration of the United States as we know it?

The vision of Dr. Ford won’t go away: Her soft, child-like voice, the heartbreaking definition of fight or flight, two front doors, the hand over her mouth, making eye contact with Mark Judge, Brett Kavanaugh looming over her defenseless self, the uproarious laughter.

The vision of Judge Kavanaugh won’t go away: His angry contorted face, his unhinged shouting, the lame definition of Devil’s Triangle, Renate Alumnius, his promises of revenge, his blatant denial about his drinking, the disrespect he showed to Senator Amy Klobuchar.

And all those old white men sitting decorously like strutting peacocks, making believe they come from a place of honor and integrity. Pretending they want what’s best for the American people.

It’s enough to make anyone want to chug a hundred kegs of beer.

Every time I watch the news and see any one of those nasty old men, I want to scream at the top of my lungs: TERM LIMITS!!!

Where the hell do we go from here?

Beginning in 1998, Igor Panarin, a Russian professor and political scientist, has been predicting that the United States will first collapse and then morph into six separate parts: The California Republic, The Texas Republic, the Central North-American Republic, Atlantic America, Alaska, and Hawaii.

Among other things, he forecasted that financial and demographic changes triggered by the intervention of foreign powers, mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation would lead to social unrest, national division, and ultimately civil war.

Panarin even predicted that the wealthier states might get so fed up with the corruption and partisan politics that they may even withhold funds from the federal government effectively seceding from the Union.

Panarin also said this: “The U.S. dollar isn’t secured by anything. The country’s foreign debt has grown like an avalanche; this is a pyramid, which has to collapse. … Dissatisfaction is growing. … There’s a 55–45% chance right now that disintegration will occur. … There is a high probability that with the collapse of the United States, Russia and China will become economic superpowers, and will need to collaborate to rebuild the world economy with a new currency once the United States (and the U.S. dollar) cease to exist. …Occupy Wall Street protests have highlighted the ever-deepening split with America’s ruling elite.”

At the time of his predictions, the first thing I thought was that the guy was bonkers.

The second thing I thought was that it would make for a great movie!

Pure fantasy, but it could be an apocalyptic best seller!

And now, well I feel like I am watching the trailer of a doomsday movie that is soon to come out.

To know the fate of the United States, don’t forget to tune in on November 6th!

Last night I saw an interview clip on television by a father whose daughter committed suicide, that just about broke my heart.

An elderly man was holding up a sign that read:  “Judge Roy Moore called my daughter Patti Sue Mathis a pervert because she was gay.”

In the clip, Nathan Mathis, from Wicksburg, Alabama, clearly tormented and holding back tears said that he used to be anti-gay. “I said bad things to my daughter myself, which I regret, but I can’t take back what happened to my daughter,” he said. “Stuff like saying my daughter is a pervert, I’m sure that bothered her.”

This heart wrenching video says it all: 

I quickly went online to try to find out more about this repentant man and his deceased daughter.

I found the letter below that Nathan Mathis sent to the Dothan Eagle, a local newspaper in Dothan, Alabama, back on August 22, 2012.

With election time just around the corner, and watching and reading the news, “gay bashing” has begun again.

I once told gay jokes and bashed gays, but a real true life story might make people think just as that true life story makes me think.

On Oct. 11, 1972, Sue and I were blessed to have a baby girl, which we named Patti Sue Mathis. Patti was a wonderful child – happy, treated other children as she should, regardless of wealth or color, very athletic, tomboyish (I always had to pitch batting practice to her after Dixie Youth practice), very beautiful and smart. Patti may hold the scoring title at Wicksburg in basketball for girls. I’m not sure, but her points-per-game average was high. She was selected as the most valuable player at Enterprise State Junior College in softball.

When Patti was a senior at Wicksburg High, I found out she was gay from a young friend she had told. I confronted Patti and I said some things to her that still eat on me to this day. I told her I was sorry that I said those mean things to her.

Patti moved out, but came back home approximately four months later and sat down and cried and said, “Daddy, I don’t want to be gay. Will you please get me some help?” I told her that I sure would and I called UAB hospital and made an appointment.

Patti had been raised by going to church at Christian Home Church of Christ, and she was there almost every time the door was open. Patti knew the story of Sodom, for oftentimes gay bashing was preached from the pulpit. Looking back now, I wonder how Patti must have felt, or if she even knew she was gay then. I never asked her.

 We went with Patti to UAB and all types of blood work and tests were done on her that day. Finally, on over in the afternoon, the doctor called Patti, Sue and me into his office and he told Patti, “Young lady, you can’t help the way you are. There is nothing we can do for you.” I said to myself, “Man, this doctor is crazy.”

We visited other doctors and psychiatrists and Patti was told the same thing: “You can’t help the way you are.”

On March 22, 1995, Patti took her own life because she didn’t want to be gay anymore. She was tired of being ridiculed and made fun of. She was tired of seeing how a lot of people treat gay people. I found Patti that day.

Sometime after Patti died, I attended church and a visiting preacher was preaching. About 10 minutes into the sermon, he bashed gays the rest of the way. As soon as the invitation song was given, I went out the door with one of the worst headaches I had ever had. I was ashamed of myself for sitting there and not defending Patti. I have not been much since.

I have a hard time believing that God would allow Patti to be born as she was and if the doctors and psychiatrists were correct that “she could not help the way she was,” that Patti was going to bust hell wide open. I asked a local doctor recently if the medical profession had found a cure for being gay and he said, “No.” He changed the subject after that.

I have no quarrel with any letter writers or readers on this subject. Believe what you want to. I only know that if you ever have a child or grandchild who is gay, you’ll think differently.

Whatever happened to “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Does that exclude gays?

May God have mercy on us all. I only know I miss my daughter Patti very much and I am grateful for having her as my daughter.

Nathan Mathis

Wicksburg

Do what’s right Alabama.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. ~ Galatians 5:22-23

UPDATE: A month after Doug Jones defeated Roy Moore, Ellen DeGeneres sat down with Nathan Mathis. His daughter Patti Sue would have been so proud of her daddy.

On Monday, November 20, 2017, “Access Hollywood” host Natalie Morales had this to say about Trump’s recent delusional attempt to deny the authenticity of the now infamous tape: “Let us make this perfectly clear. The tape is very real. Remember his excuse at the time was ‘locker-room talk.’ He said every one of those words.”

The next day, Republican Senator of Arizona Jeff Flake said it best when asked about Trump’s attempt to reinvent history: “You didn’t win the popular vote, there weren’t more people at your inauguration than ever, that was your voice on that tape.”

When the “Access Hollywood” tape, that had Donald Trump boasting about grabbing women’s genitals surfaced, I sadly assumed he would get away with saying it—as well as doing it.

Most powerful men do.

And I was right.

Trump quickly came out and blamed it on locker room talk.

He blamed it on a locker, and sadly, a ton of people fell for it.

Even his wife Melania backed him up.

She told Anderson Cooper at the time that her husband’s lewd comments about sexually assaulting women were just “boy talk.”

As I sat there listening to her tripe with my mouth hanging open, she continued saying how he was “egged on” to say “dirty and bad stuff” by Billy Bush, the “Access Hollywood” host at the time.

She blamed it on Billy, and sadly, a ton of people fell for it.

Melania actually referred to her husband and Billy Bush as “two teenage boys.”

Donald Trump was 59 at the time, not exactly a whippersnapper.

Then, more than a dozen women came out and accused Trump of all sorts of unseemly acts.

But I still knew it wasn’t going to make a damn bit of difference.

And it didn’t.

While Trump became President, Billy Bush became a pariah.

Billy didn’t assault women, he didn’t grab at their genitals, and he didn’t force himself on them.

He chuckled, acted foolishly by playing along, and sucked up to Trump.

And for that Billy’s world imploded.

He lost his job a week after the tape came out and his wife of almost two decades left him this past September.

On Monday, the poor guy landed in a hospital after being hit in the head with a golf ball.

This has been a tough few months for Billy.

I say the guy should get a break. I say after Billy recuperates from his golf ball injury he should be interviewed.

Ask Billy Bush.

If there’s anyone out there who wishes the tape was fake, it’s the guy who lost his job and probably his wife because of it.

And who knows, maybe if he takes to the air waves, all the people who fell for Donald and Melania’s lame excuses will finally forgive Billy…

…for the simple sin of not having the strength of character to change the subject.