5/19/20

More Trumpers turn to suicide as the way out

When Garrison Keillor opened A Prairie Home Campanion in the Rapid City Civic Center Theatre on November 20, 1999 he cited a statistic that Pennington County has the highest per capita gun ownership in the United States. A nervous chuckle rolled through the audience.

In one thought intersection during her 2012 presentation in Santa Fe Michelle Alexander used the example of any kid in South Dakota (a state where suicide is the 9th leading cause of death) having easy access to illegal drugs but whose family can't afford or lives too far from clinical care.

In 2018 the Rapid City Journal blamed the South Dakota Republican Party for spikes in suicides and depression then a Sanford Health executive did the same last year. South Dakota is ranked 6th highest in the nation for suicides reporting more than 22 self-administered terminations per 100,000 people or an increase of 59% since 1999 and the 11th highest increase in any state.

It's becoming increasingly apparent that Republicans are suffering from mass clinical depression comorbid with suicide ideation. Gun carrying people are saying they are being responsible (but won't be held liable) for our safety if the rest of us don’t, or refuse to, carry. Stand your ground has become vigilante justice because the courts are overwhelmed with suspects in the war on drugs, our communities are becoming armed camps and we’re barricaded in our homes afraid to let our kids go to school. A study recently published in the Journal of Rural Health found the suicide rate for farmers is not only the highest of any occupation in America, it's spiking because of a lack of ready access to mental health care services.

Yes, socialized agriculture, socialized dairies, socialized cheese, socialized livestock production, a socialized timber industry, socialized air service, socialized freight rail, a socialized nursing home industry, a socialized internet and now socialized gas well remediation are all fine with Republicans in South Dakota but then they insist single-payer medical insurance is socialized medicine.

The livestock industry has been subsidized for at least four decades but today in irony Republican ranchers are complaining that capitalism makes other Republicans rich. Yesterday I retweeted three nearly identical stories like this one from New Mexico, from South Dakota and Montana, too.

If I could go back in time I'd kill baby Fred Trump.
It's a worrisome trend in the rural West, the region that suffers from from the highest rates of gun suicide. People in rural places are more likely to experience loneliness, isolation and poverty, which is exacerbated by the pandemic. [Pandemic Could Exacerbate High Rates Of Gun Suicides In Rural West]
Maybe this would be a great time for a piece of rhubarb pie.

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