I will preface this with, I’m not asking for a Trump supporter to try and convince me why they support him. I just need to say what I have been feeling. You can read or not read, agree or disagree.
We only have a week until the presidential election. A week to worry. A week to stress. A week to protect fragile hope. The 2016 results were shocking. I will always remember crying in our living room. I didn’t understand then and eight years later I still do not understand now how people could vote for a person who knowingly and happily denigrates women, disrespects military service people, mocks disabled citizens, and wants to actively rip away rights and protections for minorities and LGBTQIA+ Americans. It isn’t someone saying he did those things. We all heard his words and saw his actions. I know decent people who voted for that, and I still do not understand why.
In 2020, when he and his party lost, I dared to hope that it would be a turning point for the good. I thought perhaps those followers would wake up to the deceptions. And some did. But so many more haven’t even blinked. And now we are up for another election, and he is still using his followers and celebrity and sheer incomprehensibility to try and avoid punishment for the criminal activity he has been both charged with and convicted. When have we ever had a presidential candidate who has had dozens of convictions on their record and who has been investigated for treason against our country? If there was a hint of any one of these charges with a past candidate, nothing would have saved them in the eye of the public. The Republican party would have been the first to judge. Where is that judgement now?
All to say, I am scared about this election. I was horrified in 2016, but I had hope that good people were just misled. I thought if we all survived those four years, we (those people included) would come together to fix the mess we were in. In 2020, I was disillusioned at seeing the number of people still casting their votes for him with full knowledge of what he had done the previous four years. But, when he wasn’t elected, I was cautiously hopeful that there were more people who would stand against that sort of malignancy infecting our country. And now we are four years forward, still recovering, still fighting, still holding on to that tiny hope as we once again see our friends and family and neighbors continue to support a monster. I am more frightened this year than I was the prior two election years. We all know his wants and desires for this country. We know what he’s capable of, and we know that his party will not stand against him when it counts.
I’ve heard dozens of excuses for voting for him. That’s what they are … excuses. I’ll be honest, if someone tells me they are voting for that monster, I don’t care why anymore. It’s way past time for individual grievances and justifications. None of them come close to balancing the scale of what we know about what he believes, supports, and has actively allowed or participated in. There is no comparison.
I take my first statement back. If you, after everything, are still a Trump supporter, I would rather you just quietly unfriend/unfollow me on every outlet, lose my e-mail or phone number. No leaving announcement needed. If you support him as a candidate to lead our country and make decisions about our future, then I have to think you also harbor hate and disrespect in your hearts for women and girls, the LGBTQIA+ community, disabled individuals, military men and women, people of color, immigrants, and anyone else who does not fit into your tiny world view of perfection.
And before someone says I shouldn’t let politics come between me and the people I love. It’s not. This isn’t politics. This isn’t a discussion about tax rates or military spending or how state budgets are used or which party anyone belongs to. It’s about the most basic rights and common decency. It’s about being human and wanting equality in all areas of life for everyone whether we agree/approve of them or not. Will I ever understand your choice to continue to support Trump or anyone like him? No. Do I believe in the deepest part of my heart that you deserve the right to medical care when you are sick, the right to love and marry whichever adult you want, the right to be paid for your worth as an employee, to be treated equally regardless of your race or gender or sexual orientation, to have control over your own body and freedom? Yes. Without question. I do not have to agree with you, like you, or even know you to believe you deserve those things. My greatest wish is for you to want the same.
