Thursday and Friday, I called in sick. I had body aches, a mild sore throat, some coughing, and just didn’t feel like I could focus on work. I feel better today, but in the process of dodging work and recovering, I completely skipped July 12th, 2024, the day The Psychic on the Jury officially released.

Today is July 13th, 2024, and it seems like… other news… takes precedent.

I’m not going to write something stupid or foolish here. If you know me, you probably know that I greatly dislike Donald Trump. There are many, many, many reasons why.

However, I don’t want him dead. I want to defeat him in the polls and the ballot box. I want his followers and worshippers and sycophants and enablers to all see him for the monster that he is, and then I want to never hear from him (or the rest of his family) again. If he wants to spend the rest of his miserable life on one of his golf courses, that would be fine.

I would like to see him face the consequences of his actions, but I would settle for almost any series of events in which I don’t have to hear him speak again.

By “almost any series of events” I mean, I’m not in favor of him being martyred, assassinated, killed… we don’t need more violence.

Has he espoused and promoted violence at his rallies? Yes. That doesn’t mean I think he should receive it himself.

We need de-escalation. We need to hold onto our morals, put down the pitchforks (and guns), and be the kind of people that deserve the country our forefathers fought and bled for. We need to be better than our forefathers, for that matter.

We need to be united.

I would rather be talking about my book and my writing journey. Instead I’m looking at things like Project 25 and today’s shooting, and all I can think is, “My God. This really is the end of my country, isn’t it?”

It doesn’t have to be. But we have to start getting ready for the worst.

I think Trump and his followers are going to fan the flames and try to escalate things. I think we’re going to see more violence before we get to the election. We need to de-escalate. We need to hold onto our morals, refrain from getting dragged down into fights that are beneath us, and make our voices heard in November.

I’m tired of living in interesting times. When times are boring, someone like me can spend days like today trying to drum up interest in their little book, rather than plead to the void not to do anything hasty or stupid. Instead, we have assassination attempts and plans for tyranny and fascism.

Please stay safe out there and remember who we are.