Dear Donald Trump,
You’ve spoken your thoughts about another shooting in America. In this case, the shooter was white and former military, so it wasn’t domestic terrorism or religion you could use to make a scapegoat. Instead you retreated to the old catch all — that it is the mentally ill who are the problem.
www.cnn.com/...
“we have a lot of mental health problems in our country, as do other countries.”
Mr. President, in a nation of hundreds of millions, the rate of those with mental health issues can be small and yet, still a large number of people impacted. You apparently recognize this problem — but, rather than do anything to help, you and your Republican allies have made savage budget cuts in programs that help those with mental illness.
You have attacked those with mental illness and cut their life lines. You’ve threatened the budgets for community service to help them, and you’ve mocked them. Now, you blame them for murders when there isn’t an easy scapegoat available.
If Mental Health issues are the concern, Mr. President, why are you proposing a heartless plan in the budget to cut their support, including housing options?
ps.psychiatryonline.org/...
Children stand to lose if the federal government follows through on threats to cut funding for critical safety-net programs that have long supported families and communities. Although cuts directly targeting children’s mental health are a great concern, cuts to policies that support health, housing, education, and family income are equally disturbing. These less publicized proposed cuts affect children indirectly, but they have direct effects on their families and communities
Mr. President, if you want to talk about mental health issues, please, do not use people with mental illness as a scapegoat while you steal away their ability to help themselves.
In Republican lead states around the country, mental health issues are so drastically underfunded that waiting lists exist in states all over the country.
But, on October 5, you changed the law to make one thing easy for those facing serious mental illness, and that’s buying guns.
If you, Mr. President, believe mental illness is the issue, then what do you intend to do about it? What do you intend to do to help mental illness in America? Or do you plan to do what you have always done: make those with mental illness the scapegoat when a white person commits a horrible act, and then, proceed to do absolutely nothing?
I’ve seen this story before. We all have. Dehumanizing people to make them an enemy, then throwing up your hands and saying you can do nothing.
Deplorable.