To some of you good folks who are still planning to vote for Trump.
We all know that some of his supporters are vile people, so know that I am not speaking to them.
I understand the appeal four years ago. Trump was brash and independent. He was going to shake things up and upend the system that you felt had ignored and abandoned you. He would bring his get things done attitude to Washington and make things right.
Yes, you heard the awful things he said about people. You watched him make fun of a disabled man. You listened to him brag about sexually assaulting women. You heard about the porn star. But we’ve all said and done things we weren’t proud of, and you weren’t electing a scoutmaster.
Maybe it rankled you a bit when he called the free press “the enemy of the people.” Because you know that the job of the press is to inform the people of what those in power are doing. Honest and just politicians might not like what the press says about them, but they have nothing to fear from them. Sure, that is what authoritarians and dictators like Stalin, Mussolini, and Hitler used to call the press, but you let it slide. Trump was not used to the press and didn’t always say the right thing.
And you put blinders on as things got uglier. The defense of white supremacists, the attack on black Americans and women, snatching babies from refugee mothers at our border and locking them in cages must have slipped past you. Perhaps you just dismissed all that as lies told by Trump haters. Confronting the horror of people fleeing the only homes they have known and throwing themselves on the mercy of the great America, only to be treated like animals and have your children taken away and caged would break the heart of anyone who really thought about it.
Maybe the constant lying and narcissistic behavior was just part of what you got with a guy who was getting things done.
And maybe you became numb to it all and the attacks against lawful protests, the obvious racism, the cozying up to dictators, the working our government for personal profit, etc., etc., etc.
You tried not to think about his draft-dodging during the Vietnam War. After all, it was an unpopular war that many people tried to avoid. And you weren’t going to believe the reports of him calling those who served America “suckers,” and those who were killed “losers,” even though he said as much about genuine American heroes and their families on camera in front of microphones.
You knew when you voted for him that he was uncouth, brash, mean, and dirty; and you cast your ballot for him anyway.
But what you didn’t know then, what few if any of us knew back then, is that he is a psychopath.
A couple weeks ago the FBI and Michigan State Police arrested more than a dozen men for conspiring to kidnap the Governor that that state, as well as launch an armed attack against the state capitol to start a civil war. These domestic terrorists claimed that they were going to “arrest” the Governor and secret her away to Wisconsin for a trial for treason. Never mind the disregard of the Constitution they were supposed to be defending, or any actual crimes.
Trump complained that the Governor didn’t thank him personally, for allowing the FBI to stop the conspiracy. And then this Saturday agreed with a crowd of passionate devotees that they should “lock her up.”
What sane person would do this? Who but a psychopath would continue to fan the flames of lawlessness and violence in the aftermath of so real a threat?
Add to this his unfounded and imagined claims of crimes by his opponents, and his insistence that his Attorney General should invent some charges against those who oppose him, and you have a full-blown lunatic. He believes and repeats wacko conspiracies and threatens retribution against anyone who stands up to him.
You must take notice of the hundreds, no thousands, of committed Republican politicians, former politicians, retired generals, admirals, and ex-government officials who are all endorsing and voting for Trump’s opponent Joe Biden. This isn’t because they agree with the policies Biden endorses, but because he is an honorable man who will work for good government, and that electing him will stop Trump’s deranged attack against our Republic.
What do they fear? Well, I recently saw a quote online. I don’t recall who it was from, so I apologize for not acknowledging the author, but the quote was,
“Hitler wasn’t Hitler until he had unfettered power.”
Turn away from Trump. Stop dismissing his critics and stop defending his actions.