Trumpensschreckenswut

It was shortly after the bleach-injection/UV lung treatment idea unleashed by Donald "Mengele" Trump and slightly before I happened upon a Christian Trump supporter's Facebook page where prayers were being solicited for God's anointed one (who seemed to be suffering from a case of "loosened tongue") that I realized what I need -- what we all need -- to get through the double-plague of COVID-19 and 45. 

What we need, my friends, is one word that contains the amalgam of shock, horror, rage and fear we are experiencing as Americans at this moment when it appears that our president is literally TRYING to kill us.

(A measure of how horrifyingly sick this present moment is is the fact that I find myself wishing for a president who was merely incompetent...not incompetent and resentful, incompetent and narcissistic, incompetent and science-averse, incompetent and sociopathic, incompetent and racist, incompetent and homicidal.)

As English is disadvantaged by having a limited number of syllables permitted to individual words, I knew that this was likely to come from German, a language famous for words of impressive length that convey entire weltanschauungs (world views).

But who to consult in the dead of the New York night as I gnawed away at my cuticles, chewing Elderberry gummies (high in Zinc and vitamin C!) and counting the cans of tuna, cans of diced plum tomatoes, cartons of Oat Milk and boxes of lentil pasta on the floor of my office/emergency food storage locker?

It came to me in a brilliant flash. My oldest son, a culture writer living in Germany for the past 12 years was just greeting the Munich morning as I stared balefully out the window at an idling Mt. Sinai Ambulance parked on the corner of Amsterdam and W116th Street.

As one of his gigs, for the New York Times, entailed covering the German language theater scene in Europe I felt this was a reasonable ask. And even if he were not up for the task, his wife, my Italian daughter-in-law, was fluent in German as well. 

Perhaps their best credential was that THEY WERE AWAKE!

Through our WhatsApp call I conveyed what I was seeking. I did not have to give too much of a preamble, shorthanding the assignment as my search for the schadenfreude equivalent for this state of mind. 

Two brilliant minds went to work. I humbly suggested that the word end in "angst," which every American could relate to. There was a first version. That was amended. Angst was in it. Then angst was taken out. Angst, they explained, was implicit. 

Include his name or not? I thought not. They argued for specificity. 

Some more back and forth, some family gossip and then my daughter-in-law produced the word: Trumpensschreckenswut. If I could figure out how to place an umlaut over the u in Trump I would, so add your own if you can.

What does this mean? This word of twenty-one letters encapsulates this moment, names the unique and horrible psychological state we find ourselves in as American citizens being held hostage by the Mad King Donald.

It literally means Trumpish Horror/Rage. 

This word is a world unto itself. A terrible world, to be sure. A world with monsters, straight from our childhood nightmares.

The length of the word reflects the length of our quarantine, the interminable sentence of the Trump presidency, the endless ability to be shocked afresh, anew, every day, several times a day.

But being able to identify a free -floating threat is helpful. We named the thing. We know what it is. We can examine it. We can talk about it. Soon we can overcome it.

And the kinder were correct. There is no need to add the word "angst."

Angst is implicit.

Angst colors the dawn of every day that 45 is the American president during the crisis of COVID-19.