My apologies. I haven’t written in a very long time. It’s been a busy and slightly frenetic year. But if there was ever a time to return to the fray, it is now.
I often hear comments like this from those who follow me on social media: “Isn’t he awful? I hate him too.” To be clear, I don’t hate trump. I hate him no more than I could hate putin, kim jong-il, orban, or others of that ilk. He’s an awful human being who craves nothing more than the power to stay out of jail, crushing his many perceived enemies via social policy/legislation, and using a populist racial hatred of ‘the other’ to achieve those goals.
I don’t hate him. I feel nothing towards him. What I actually do hate, however, is what has been done to the country that I love. His amoral and sociopathic personality has embedded itself into the collective consciousness of millions. Many of them have similar racist beliefs, and follow him like a pied piper. Many of them don’t give a shit about the racism, and follow him because of what they think they can get out of his followers (money or power).
If that’s the case and someone is honest about it, fine. I will view you as ‘garbage’, and deservedly so. (Thank you POTUS for that apt moniker.)
But please don’t frame this election as a difference in political ideologies. It is not. Madame Vice President Kamala Harris is offering multiple ways to help all Americans achieve the American Dream. Some might be better than others, and some might be up for debate. And that’s okay. We should debate and make things better.
What we get from trump and his team is another term of racial and political hate, codified via legislation. There are no real policies. There is only hate. Mass deportations. The use of the military on US citizens who do things he doesn’t like, and the use of the military to stay in power if he were to lose an election while in office. The censoring of media outlets he feels have been unfair to his maga messaging. And the very real prospect of a national abortion ban with punishment for any woman attempting to have one.
None of that is about political ideologies. So please tell me again why I should give a shit if I lose a friendship based on the very real difference in values between myself and someone who would support someone like that?
It’s time to head out and try to act as if today isn’t, once again, one of the most critical elections in my lifetime. I will head out to the gym, to gas up my car, buy some groceries, and act as if we aren’t on the verge of an total American Democracy meltdown.
Like I said, I don’t hate him. I can’t say the same for someone who knows what he’s about yet votes for him thinking they won’t get hurt by his hate.
Those people? Yeah, I might hate them.