Let's face facts, even unhappy facts -- the TSA is not about to go away.
Why?
1. It does serve a purpose in that it gives the Kettles a sense of security -- be it a false sense or not. I believe that without it, fewer people would fly and the airlines would be in serious trouble. (I have even heard Richard Anderson, the CEO of Delta, praise the TSA -- and he is smart enough to realize that it is not real security, just the illusion of it.)
2. Any politician, be it the president or a member of Congress, who approved the dismantling of the TSA would be putting himself in an extremely precarious position. Today, if there is an attack which involves a terrorist aboard an airplane, the government can say, "We tried everything possible to prevent this." If the TSA is dismantled and there is such an attack, the voters would turn on the politicians who shut it down. It is a very rare politician who will put himself in that position.
3. The TSA was recently allowed to unionize. It is hard enough to fire one federal employee -- short of a union calling an illegal strike (as the air traffic controllers once did), it would be almost impossible to fire the whole union.
It is even extremely unlikely that the TSA will reform itself. It has to be seen as doing something and it is not about to admit that it made millions of Americans go through the dog and pony show when it was actually worthless.
Okay. Those are the (sad) facts of life. Given that, what should flyers do?
1. They can accept the x-ray machines (knowing it might also lead to a patdown).
2. They can opt out and take the patdown.
3. They can choose not to fly.
Each person has to make that decision for himself/herself. Yes, there will unquestionably be people who will choose number 3. Even some people who have no problem with the TSA choose not to fly because they have mental/emotional problems about air travel. Their problems may be different than those of the OP's wife, but they are just as real.
Is this a happy situation? Of course not. Reality, however, cannot be ignored. The airports are not what we would like them to be but they are what they are.
It is, perhaps, easier for me to say this than it is for others. Most of my flights involve foreign airports which do not have these machines (but patdowns are becoming much more common in Europe). I fly to the US two or three times each year and go through the TSA routine perhaps 4 or 5 times on each itinerary. That exposes me to much less radiation than US-based road warriors.
The patdowns also do not bother me. In fact, I usually joke about them while going through them.
Still, I am in the same situation as everyone else. If I felt that the radiation was too dangerous, I could choose the patdowns. If I found the patdowns unbearable, I could choose not to fly. If I found neither unbearable, but had a disabling fear of heights, I could also choose not to fly.
(My problem is extreme boredom on long flights -- which reduces sharply how often I come to the States.)
Just as I cannot ignore my own reality, neither can someone who finds the TSA unbearable.