The author and therapist Brene Brown once said that if we can share our stories with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame and hatred can’t survive.

I began my work with the Army Of Good in 2016 not because I’m a saint but because I chose not to listen to Donald Trump or the people who followed him or the people who hate him because I never saw or heard any empathy, wisdom or understanding in these exchanges, including from me.

I didn’t want to jump on that train, one way or the other.

Mr. Trump is loved by many millions more than I am loved, but I choose to find other people to listen to as all kinds of dull fools take center stage.

They have the right to their choices; I have the right to mine.

I warn myself, and I warn my readers to be careful who they choose to listen to as we enter another already trying political season.

American politics has become almost a mind-bending drama as the Qatar World  Soccer Cup.

I believe strongly that we become who we listen to in one way or the other. When we listen to angry, crazy, and disturbed people, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

We do ourselves and our country no service when we listen to so-called “leaders” who have nothing to say and have rejected any reason, empathy, or understanding for others.

I’m not going to listen to them, a decision that helps to ground me, do good and meaningful work, and come to happiness.

This idea ignited a rich spiritual life when I began listening to people like Thomas Merton, St. Augustine,  St. Therese, Joah Chittister, and Henry Nouwen instead of people like Mr. Trump or Elon Musk.

They enriched my life and helped me find my purpose.

That began my understanding of the importance of being careful about who I listened to.

This morning, I looked at the news, almost always a mistake on a Sunday, and I came across several stories that reinforced my idea that I need to be careful who I listen to if I wish to stay grounded and healthy.

My mind is too fragile and volatile to pay attention to these people.

Mr.  Trump is a Revolutionary Figure, as he insisted he was. He opened Pandora’s box of angry ignoramuses who can’t stop talking to a nation that can’t stop listening.

Historians will seize on the fact that Trump unleashed a whole movement of people I don’t care to listen to but that our media can’t stop quoting, interviewing, writing, and talking about.

I imagine Jefferson following our news and sensing this incestuous circle of hell.

Elon Musk is the new Trump, I see. He’s now everywhere, all the time.

Once again, I’m an outlier living outside the tent. Corporate bosses love Musk as they loved Trump; it’s about time, they say, to start kicking employees around again.

Am I the only person in America who finds this barrage of Musk tweets (another Trumpian legacy) stupefying boring? Don’t we have enough crazy fools to listen to?

Looking at the news today, I came across those quotes from Mr. Musk: “The woke mind virus is either  defeated or nothing else matters.” And then this one: “Thanksgiving cuisine is such a delightful symphony of flavor.”

You might get us to outer space, Mr. Musk, but you are no writer or deep thinker.

And then, I heard the newest media Washington media favorite, Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, brag to some New York Republicans that if she were in charge, the January 6 rioters would have all been armed and “would have won.”

Like her spiritual adviser and mentor, Mr. Trump, she said later she was kidding, another Trump innovation when he stepped on his pecker.

He didn’t understand that he was dining with a Nazi either.

As for Mr. Trump, the pioneer of governing by tweet, he was announcing an “important” event, the sale of Digital Trump Superhero cards for only $99 apiece.

Even Steve Bannon said he’d had enough. He was only kidding too.

Then there is Florida’s Governer DeSantis, the sourpuss, and ambitious politician who wants to convene a grand jury to arrest and jail doctors and scientists who believed vaccines could help fend off Covid-19, something Governor DeSantis was once the very first governor to embrace and support.

I wonder if he’s going to have to indict himself.

“The idea that we can change or stop the climate.” I’m just skeptical,” he said. It’s much more straightforward, I guess, than vaccines.

I suppose I am one of the very few people in America who find all these people boring. I can’t recall a single quote, idea, or policy that impressed me or made me want to hear more.

When I heard Superhero Trump suggest that people drink bleach and disinfectants to stop them from getting sick, I decided that this was not somebody I needed to listen to.

Time Magazine reported that disinfectant poisonings were up as much as 121% in April of 2021, right after Trump mused about disinfectants. The media yawned.

They love to quote him but weren’t too big on accountability, which takes work and is expensive.

He said he was only kidding.

Elon Musk has roared onto that list of people I won’t be listening to. I once thought him fascinating and sometimes inspirational. But I don’t need to listen to him anymore.

And none of his biographers warned me that he is boring and has nothing to say.

As a former journalist and passionate lover of journalism, I have to be honest and say that if Jesus Christ resurrected himself today, he would not get the attention that Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Marjorie Taylor Greene, or Ron DeSantis are getting every time their open their divisive mouths.

I believe in taking responsibility for what I say and do.

People have the right to listen to whoever they want, and God have mercy on them, but I believe that I am the people I listen to. They get into my head and consciousness and get both dirty and dark.

If I listen to them, I will get what I deserve, just as many millions of fellow Americans will get what they deserve.

I briefly fantasized about getting one of those digital Trump Superhero cards to use as a screen saver.

As a nation, we are all who we choose to listen to.

As I don’t ever tell other people what to do and never let other people tell me what to do, I can only speak for myself, not for the hundreds of millions of people who talk about destroying the evil of “woke” but can never tell me or explain what it means.

I guess they must be talking about people like me and perhaps you. Honestly, I don’t see us as much a threat to the nation.

As a former political writer, I see we are approaching the crazy season again.

I don’t want to be a political writer anymore, but I will jump in from time to time.

I can’t help it. We no longer have a functioning media, and I sometimes have to open my mouth. People can easily choose not to listen to me also.

Many have.

If it matters, I can tell you that none of the people I quoted above will ever be the President of the United States or even sell a million digital cards, which many basketball players can do.

Nor will they get to carry out their crazy notions since most of them have as much depth and influence as cotton candy at a carnival. They can poison the well, though, and are.

Mr. Trump is a good salesperson but a dreadful politician. Marjorie Taylor Green is a pimple on the ass of our civic life. Don DeSantis has all the charisma and compassion of a rhinoceros.

I wish Joe Biden had to grace to step down and let some younger people in.

As to the people I can’t bear to listen to anymore, good luck to them and those who listen to them.

Anybody who listens to them is responsible for their sanity and well-being.

I think there will one day be an app that will permit me to block creepy people and idiots from the news sites I read or anywhere else on my computer or Iphone.

Maybe one is on the way