Twilight of American Sanity (adult nonfiction)

     Allen Francis, MD begins his prologue to Twilight of American Sanity: A Psychiatrist Analyzes The Age of Trump with a quite fitting quote from Nietzsche: "Insanity in individuals is somewhat rare. But in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule." His premise is simple but profound: we have to shift our thinking from what's wrong with our current president to what compelled us to elect him and how to change before it's too late.

     He starts a chapter he calls Confronting the Facts of Life with the following challenge: "Ignorance is not bliss. What you don't know most certainly can hurt you, often in the least expected and most devastating of ways. Compelling evidence indicates that our world is marching blindly into a perfect storm of irreversible catastrophes. Absent urgent corrective action, it will soon be game over for our civilization, with no do-overs allowed."

     And what are these Catastrophes? How about:

*environmental degradation;

*rampant population growth;

*depletion of the world's resources;

*gross inequality;

*unequally distributed medical care;

*too much military aggression;

*racist isolationism;

And *a whole lot more, none of which will be addressed with Trump and his cronies in power.

     The bulk of the book provides an in depth discussions of all the elements that could have played a role in our nation's poor election decision making: biological, evolutionary, psychological, and social and the myths (i.e. American exceptionalism) that could have come into play. This is pretty heavy reading...

     ...especially because Twilight of American Sanity was written during the first Trump regime and things are now so much worse...

     ...But fortunately Frances remains reasonably optimistic and fills us in on things we must do individually and collectively to turn things around before it's too late. 

     This is not an easy or comforting to perused. But for people who grasp the enormity of the crisis and are determined to be part of the solution it's a must read. 

On a purrrsonal note, these days if you're anything like me it's hard to keep up with the news. I've never experienced a more frightening time in my 74 years on this earth. But we must because if we don't, as Francis warns, game over.

A great big shout out goes out to all people who read this book and do their best to follow its advice. 

Jules Hathaway 

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