This Is Not a Phase—It’s a Problem

“We’re not watching a tantrum—we’re watching a tactic. And love, in this moment, means drawing the line.” - Mary Coughin

There was a time I likened the United States to an adolescent—restless, idealistic, searching for identity, and prone to risky behavior. It was a metaphor that offered hope: adolescence, after all, is a stage. A passage. Something we grow through.

And like so many, I gave the benefit of the doubt.

I believed we were simply in a tumultuous phase—lashing out, yes, but on our way to something wiser. I thought if we could just offer enough truth, enough compassion, enough care, we’d mature into the nation we were meant to become.

But I misread the moment.

This isn’t adolescent turmoil. This is something else.

We are being led by a petulant brat in a suit—impulsive, entitled, indifferent to harm, and obsessed with control. Not a struggling child in need of guidance, but a manipulative figure who uses tantrums as tactics and cruelty as theater. And perhaps even more troubling, we are surrounded by institutions that behave like impotent parents—Congress, the courts, the very systems meant to uphold our democracy—tiptoeing, appeasing, issuing soft reprimands with no meaningful consequence.

Healthy toddlers—true toddlers—respond to love.
They seek safety.
They long for co-regulation.
They grow, when guided with consistency and care.

This isn’t that.

This is dysfunction emboldened.
This is power without principle.
This is what happens when boundaries are abandoned under the guise of neutrality or fear.

And so the question becomes:
If the leader is the brat, and Congress the permissive parent, then who is left to protect the soul of the nation?

We are.

We the people—perhaps like the older siblings in a household spinning into chaos—are stepping in where others have failed. Not because it should be our job. But because someone has to hold the line. Someone has to remember what love looks like when it’s firm. What justice feels like when it’s grounded in care. What freedom requires when it’s under threat—not a passive belief, but active, embodied protection.

And for some of us, this isn’t just metaphor.

We know what it’s like to grow up in households where chaos ruled and boundaries dissolved.
Where the adults were too afraid or too broken to lead.
Where the children became the caregivers, the truth-tellers, the quiet stabilizers in the storm.

That memory lives in our nervous systems.
Which is why this moment doesn’t just stir our politics—it stirs our past.
But it also stirs our power.

Because we remember how to survive dysfunction.
And now—together—we can choose to rise beyond it.

This is not about partisanship. It’s about presence.
It’s about choosing to become the grown-ups in the room.
To set boundaries. To name harm. To stop excusing bad behavior as a “phase.”

Because this isn’t a phase. It’s a problem.

And the longer we pretend this is just political theater or growing pains, the more we risk becoming complicit in our own unraveling.

We don’t need more hollow performances of civility.
We need courageous accountability.
We need collective clarity.
We need the kind of love that doesn’t flinch from the truth.

And that love? That clarity? That courage?

It starts with us.

Boldly, bravely, and without apology—
For truth.
For boundaries.
For the future we are still capable of weaving.

—Mary

If this stirred something in you—anger, recognition, resolve—you’re not alone.
We can do something. We must do something.
And it starts by refusing to normalize what is not normal.

🧶 Join me in reclaiming our future—one thread at a time.
Explore Project 2026, sign The People’s Declaration, and become part of the movement to reimagine democracy—trauma-informed, justice-rooted, and powered by love.