[Disclaimer: This post is neither agreeable or conciliatory. If you’re a Trump voter, Trump sympathizer, or GOP voter who stuck your head in the sand, you may want to go elsewhere.]
A few weeks ago, I posted ‘I Want an Honest Discussion with a Trump Voter!‘ with the sincere hope that such a discussion would help me move beyond my disdain for those who helped him win over Clinton. Any calls for my acceptance of this national nightmare must be accompanied by an acknowledgement of the racism and bigotry upon which the Trump campaign was built.
I’m sad to report that not a single Trump voter took me up on my offer. I had one nibble through an intermediary, but that went south after they read my post and objected to my reference of Trump as a Cheeto-colored race-baiting narcissist. They didn’t like the “name-calling”. (If anyone can prove to me which of these is untrue, I’ll post a retraction.)
Since Trump did nothing but call people names, to great applause and cheers, at his rallies, I’m at a loss to understand the ironically fragile constitution of Trump voters. Moving on…
I was warned by many that there would be no takers. Still, I remained hopeful that at least one Trump voter would finally tell me the truth behind their vote. That, while acknowledging some would be hurt, they hoped that the promised change to DC’s “business as usual” culture might be good for all of us in the long run.
It didn’t happen.
Not a single individual, either on Facebook or in person, admitted to voting for Trump. Needless to say, it’s extremely difficult to have a two-sided conversation with only myself. The silence has been deafening, and also somewhat shocking.
Hate crimes, particularly against Muslims and Jews, are on the rise. Racist public rants by Trump supporters, shared on social media, have become more common. We’ve even started to jeopardize long-standing international diplomatic protocols, putting us at odds with the likes of China (which owns much of our debt). Yet we hear no criticism from those more interested in having “won” than they are in the welfare of the country and their fellow citizens.
It’s either indifference or, more likely, cowardice. If it’s not indifference to this troubling turn of events, then it’s cowardice.
If you voted for Trump, own it. It wasn’t magic. People voted for him. Even if it was simply a feel-good MAGA vote, YOU voted for him. Please note, however, that along with that vote for a Donna Reed past that wasn’t great for many of us, you also own the post-election shit that’s come – and will be coming – with it i.e. more hate crimes, more emboldened racists and white supremacists, more international tensions, etc.
Even if you won’t own your vote, you’re still a coward if you don’t speak up when you see the president-elect and his supporters taking actions that hurt your fellow private citizens, private companies, or our standing in the world. For God’s sake, if you claim to love America, then stand up for shared American values and not just your self-serving ideology.
I’m fully aware that my tone is off-putting. Some might even call it offensive. I could potentially even lose friends over this. I’m okay with this, and I’ll tell you why. Most elections are ideological battles: Democrat v Republican, Left v Right, Liberal v Conservative. This election was different. Ideology was replaced by human decency, with battles based upon supporters definitions (and acceptance) of decency v indecency.
Pussy-grabbing (sexual assault) became acceptable behavior. White supremacy became white supremacy. A private email server became grounds for treason and locking up political opponents. Female journalists were targeted and abused as part of a candidate’s stump speech. It was horrifying.
The worst part, however, was not about ideology or decency. It was the fear-filled reality of campaign promises that would definitively hurt tens of millions of Americans.
Trump vowed to repeal the Affordable Care Act, stripping health insurance from 20-30 million people. He vowed to sign a federal Religious Freedom act that would allow legal discrimination of the LGBTQ community. He vowed to ban Muslim entry into the US, and to create a registry for Muslim citizens. He vowed to deport all illegals, including Dream-ers. And he expressed a desire to institute a national Stop-and-Frisk, criminally profiling Blacks and Latinos.
These are facts. If you’re a Trump voter, you can assuage your guilt by repeating any one of a number of ridiculous assertions about Hillary Clinton. But it would simply be deflection. Your vote for Trump was, for all practical purposes, a vote for his campaign promises.
I am directly targeted by three of these promises(ACA repeal, Religious Freedom, and Stop-and-Frisk). So if you voted for Trump and are offended by this piece, I don’t care. I’m offended by your duplicity. If “All Lives Matter”, then all lives must matter: not just white, Christian lives.
This election will go down in history as a real-life version of ‘The Space Traders’. In this short story by Derrick Bell, aliens (in the form of Ronald Reagan) come to the US with a promise to relieve all of its’ woes in exchange for the country’s entire African-American population. Ultimately, the white majority votes to give the African-Americans to the aliens. They’re gathered up, and loaded onto the alien ships. The end.
The parallels are undeniable. Republicans and Trump supporters, in their quest to make America great again, have essentially done the same thing without alien intervention.
So I repeat: if you are offended, I don’t care. The real pain I’m going to be facing for the next four years, and that of millions of other Americans, is way more important to me than your offense.