Trump Voters… SHAME on You!

If you voted for Donald Trump in 2020, look in the mirror. Staring back at you is someone who does not believe in American values! Someone who does not believe in Christian values (or those of any other religion, for that matter). Someone who does not believe in truth, integrity, decency, compassion, science, art, love! Someone for whom nature is something to be used, abused, exploited, destroyed, detested. Someone for whom “the other” type of human is someone to be shunted aside, kept down, their rights, their vote, their dignity stripped, according to your whim.

Oh, you protest this condemnation, do you? Well, you are mistaken.

It is bad enough you (probably) voted to elect Trump in 2016. But, back then, perhaps you didn’t know enough about Trump, the “billionaire,” the artful “deal-maker,” the reality TV star, the “outsider,” the “tell-it-like-it-is” non-politician, the loutish, fakest “Christian” ever, and so rolled the dice in casting your vote for someone who was going to shake things up as he (and he, alone, he told you.. and you believed it) promised to “Make America Great Again.” Sure, a majority of American voters could see right through this flamboyant, duck-tailed carnival barker. But you knew better. You put your trust in a slimy chauvinist who claims to knows more about everything than anyone who ever lived. Boy, are you the smart ones! And believe the nation should always rest in your capable hands!

Yet in 2020, you had no such excuse. You knew all about Trump. You were presented with fact after fact after fact, none of them flattering, many of them wholly damning. And… you discounted all of them. You heard him belch over 22,000 lies, sometimes over 100 per day. And… you swallowed down all of them, or sloughed them off as just good ol’ Trump being funny. You saw him impeached for trying to bribe a foreign president to attack his political rival, and then rescued by a lapdog Senate. You believed him when he said it was all a “witch hunt.” You’re in your own world; you have your own “facts”… direct from the conservative echo chamber.

Well, of course, you aren’t going to believe the libtards. They know nothing. They are all commies and/or gay, atheist, gun-hating fetus-killers… or scary black/brown people. But you also ignored scores of your fellow conservatives, some of whom warned you back in 2016. That contingent of your own fellows grew to a considerable crescendo in 2020, many of them highly respected, experienced and loyal to core conservative principles. These people dutifully served the Republican cause, going back decades. They, too, cast the president in the worst possible light, certain of them more ferociously anti-Trump than the most vociferous liberal. They fear that Trumpism will, eventually, spell doom for everything they hold dear. You blithely ignored them, branding them traitors… while substituting their wisdom with that of Hannity, InfoWars, Breitbart and… QAnon. Ah yes, there is no conspiracy theory you won’t embrace… so long as it serves your narrative. You’re going to need a lot more private prisons to lock up all those child sex-trafficking Democrats.

That “American carnage” Trump envisioned our nation wallowing in, he made worse: going on 250,000 deaths (and counting) in nine months worse. That “swamp” he was going to drain, he transformed into the swampiest in American history. You learned that he cheated contractors, employees and associates (and cheats at golf). You learned that his casinos, his “university,” his airline, his steaks, even his charity were frauds. You learned he owned a beauty pageant so he could walk through the girls’ dressing room at-will. You learned he lied to you about revealing his taxes. You learned that he doesn’t pay American taxes, but has a secret bank account in China. You learned he’s up to his ears in debt… to who knows who. You learned that his 2016 campaign was crawling with Russians. You saw his grandiose southern border wall (that Mexico was going to pay for) become a rolling joke… on America. As he nears the end of his term of office, he’s added a grand total of 15 miles of new wall to the roughly 2000 mile long southern border. You saw him try his best to end Obamacare, which would have thrown tens of millions of Americans off healthcare altogether, even though he and the Republicans have not the slightest inkling of a plan to replace it. You saw him kick transgender people out of the military with a tweet. You saw him implement a racist travel ban. You saw him praise neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville. You saw him with more concern for Confederate statues than innocent black men killed by cops. You saw him separate children from their parents at the border, and sometimes never reconcile them. You saw him cozy up to dictators and killers like Putin and Duterte and Kim Jong-un and Erdogan and Bolsonaro and bin Salman. You saw him pull the U.S. out of various treaties and accords, including the all-important Paris Climate Agreement, which is the world’s best chance at mitigating devastating climate change. You saw him frustrate, irritate and insult our allies, and set the pace for emboldened authoritarian, even fascist, leaders abroad. You saw him fixated on the stock market, as if that is the end-all/be-all of the American economy, while a majority of American families continue to financially struggle. You saw him claim that “trade wars are easy to win,” and launch a foolish tariff battle with China and many other countries (including Canada… Canada?), in which American farmers, ranchers, manufacturers and consumers would pay the price. You saw him go back on his campaign promise to tax the rich, instead rewarding the rich and largest corporations with a windfall profit and permanent tax cuts, while working families received a pittance and will actually see their taxes raised in 2021 as part of that very plan. You saw the Trump economy basically following the exact same trajectory as the Obama economy (in fact, not quite as good… look it up) in terms of the stock market, job creation, unemployment and GDP, while Trump credited himself entirely for “the greatest economy in the history of the world,” even as found it necessary to goose the markets along with that huge tax cut and constant bullying of the Fed chairman to keep interest rates ridiculously, dangerously, low. Obama didn’t have to resort to such gimmicks to produce an actually stronger economy. You saw Trump interfering and feuding with elements of the private sector, something a good “free market” conservative would never dream of. His ballyhooed promise to revive American manufacturing fell far short of his boasts. Thankfully, considering it is wrecking the planet’s atmosphere, his pledge to “bring back coal” was a dud. You saw Trump thumb his nose at customs, rules, regulations, laws, including those restricting nepotism and cronyism, which he flaunted by bringing seemingly his entire family into American politics and positions of real power and responsibility. You saw him appoint his inexperienced, lousy real estate mogul son-in-law Jared Kushner to solve every problem known to man. You saw his children sashaying around the world, doing business, shooting exotic animals, staying at Trump properties when they could, raking in the family cash while U.S. taxpayers sponsored their expensive security teams (to the tune of at least $240k so far… one trip featured Donny Jr., Eric and Tiffany showboating at a Trump hotel in Vancouver, requiring 56 hotel rooms for their entourage and security. Thanks, John Smith in Omaha for your $14,000 tax bill that covered this transfer of wealth from your pocket via the IRS straight into Trump coffers). This list could go on and on. Every single day of Trump’s first term was a dramatic affront to true American sensibilities.

You, apparently, have no issue with any of this. Perhaps you think it’s all worth it in exchange for some meager tax cuts, freedom to own an arsenal of AR-15s, and a plutocratic-theocratic Supreme Court that is going to side with the rich, the largest corporations and extreme religionists in thwarting justice for all. OK, you are welcome to your preferences. Just don’t call them American.

In accepting the Trump portfolio of insults and assaults upon the entire rest of American people, land and ideals, you have allied yourself with a garish, lying conman, an egregiously ignorant, arrogant, lewd, crude, quasi-fascist thug (and probable rapist) who fancies himself a dictator… along with his disgusting family! You support the continued dismantling of America itself and its standing in the world. You would open the door to a complete takeover of the government, including its military and law enforcement agencies, by mobsters. You have no problem with the federal court system of the United States of America, including the Supreme Court, being further packed and dominated for decades by 17th Century minds, intent on conserving advantage and privilege and power for a distinct minority. You are OK with the ramping up of the kind of anything-goes capitalism which we witnessed in the 1920s and 2000s leading directly to calamitous financial crashes. You would give the green-light to a head-long rush into Global Warming and all of its attendant horror and tragedy. You would prolong the fossil fuel industry’s war on the environment, while the rest of the civilized world leaves us far behind in green technology, innovations, jobs and economies. You are perfectly fine with the United States of America doing Russia’s bidding to destroy the post-war coalitions and partnerships, including NATO and the EU, that have kept the peace in Europe and much of the rest of the world for 75 years… in exchange for… WTF???? You are fine and dandy with the president of the United States having a “love affair” with the world’s most cruel dictator in North Korea, even as he continues to develop more powerful nuclear weapons and threatens our allies, South Korea and Japan. You have proven you really don’t give a shit about the rights of MOST of “We the People,” so long as you have your FULL COMPLIMENT of “rights”… including that to discriminate against any other Americans who you find repugnant. You’re good to go with women remaining second-class and subjugated. You support the cruel and inhumane policy of ripping away children from people applying for asylum at the border. The United States of America now has custody of over 500 children; their parents lost… possibly forever. “Not my problem,” you say. You looked the other way when the Trump team bungled the Hurricane Maria response in Puerto Rico, squabbled with local officials, hired an incompetent company associated with the Interior Secretary to restore power to the island, and Trump, himself, showed up for a photo op to throw rolls of paper towels to desperate people needing food, water, shelter and electricity. You must be perfectly happy with the healthcare plan you have now (and well into the future) because you are trusting the party that has no comprehensive healthcare plan for the nation, doesn’t want a healthcare plan for the nation, except to get back as soon as possible to the bad old days of insurance companies, drug companies and greedy hospitals dictating your healthcare costs and options. Trump is perfectly willing to throw tens of millions of Americans off of healthcare entirely, while radically reducing the protections current law provides. To that, you say, “So what? Who cares?” You must not be counting on your Social Security checks because Trump and the Republicans are trying hard to figure out a way to slip its programmed destruction into law one of these days. Trump’s idea to “pause payroll taxes” (which fund Social Security) was one of those ruses. You watched on, unbothered, or perhaps inspired, as Trump and a gaggle of officials and military troops stomped on the Constitution as they gassed and shot rubber bullets at peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square so Trump could pose with a Bible outside a church that had not given him permission to use their church for such a stunt and was infuriated by his blatantly militant, completely anti-Christian, intentions. Trump, who could not finish the line, “Our Father, whom art in…,” held the Bible upside down. You saw him deploy unmarked law enforcement personnel to an American city, Portland, who proceeded to abduct protesters off the street and spirit them away in unmarked vans, greatly exacerbating the violent conditions in the city (things calmed down the moment these troops disappeared as stealthily as they arrived). It was the closest thing to Nazi “brownshirts” our nation has ever seen. You give the gold star of approval to the single world leader who has MOST bungled and botched their nation’s response to the Covid-19. America has the most Covid deaths, by far, OF ANY NATION… and still has zero federal plan to combat the pandemic, other than hope and pray for a vaccine soon. TWO HUNDRED AND THOUSAND DEATHS… and counting… on Trump’s watch, World War II like death numbers… in just 10 months. And he STILL hasn’t bothered to console the families impacted by those deaths; actually, he considers them (along with dead and wounded and captured soldiers) “losers.” So why bother with them, right? Indeed he is obviously content to allow the deaths to mount… just as long as the stock market is going up and football is being played. Trump is the whiniest dictator wannabe ever; born a millionaire, he feels he is mistreated by everyone… by the media, by the Democrats, by African Americans, by the courts, by the Nobel Prize Committee, by the world. And yet, you love him. He’s your modern messiah, though you can’t let your children watch him on TV, lest he blurt out something about grabbing pussy or wanting to fuck Ivanka. So you close your mind and heart and soul, cast away every single thing Jesus had to say, and gleefully cast your vote for a man, and an ideology, that is viciously racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic and anti-science. You surrendered to falsity, greed and meanness. You caved to fear and selfishness. You voted for evil.

As election day passed into the wee hours of the next morning, the first thing you heard from your champion was an entirely predictable, premature declaration of victory, frustration that he couldn’t have his “big party,” a whine that the election was being “stolen” by Democrats, and a call for the Supreme Court to “shut down the voting.” Every single aspect of that spiel was grotesquely anti-democratic and un-American. Even the Fox News team was aghast. “This is a flammable situation, and Trump just threw a match on it,” Chris Wallace opined. You probably bought it all hook, line and sinker, and are now parroting the treasonous call to stop the “voting.” The voting stopped on November 3 at each state’s allotted timeframe… the receiving of the ballots and counting of the votes is what is incomplete… but you would rob those voters of their votes without a qualm. And you think of yourself as a patriot! What a load of hooey!

Trump represents one of the most divisive, and certainly the most dishonest presidency in American history. He has not, for one second, behaved as the president of all “We the People.” He has been a partisan hack, making partisan everything he touches, even masks during a pandemic. And you want four more years? Or… maybe he, and his Justice Department, and his Senate, and his Supreme Court, will crown him emperor… with hereditary succession. Would you give the Nazi salute to Ivanka, or Jared or Don Jr.? Come on now, be honest with yourself. You know you would.

You have aligned yourself with conservatism — the ideology of selfishness. This is an ideology antithetical to true Americanism. But you are not really an American! You just live in America… but are perfectly willing to destroy it to suit your selfish fancies. You run to the conservative dog-whistles that promise conservation of your advantage, privilege and power. You don’t believe in fair play. You aren’t on the side of the right cause. You are on the side of the oppressor… and you know it… and you like it.

There is just one word for that: SHAME!

Copyright 2020, Rusty Reid