It is just one week before the most important election in my lifetime. As I am 72 that says quite a lot. The last 4 years have taken the blinders off me. I am depressed and disillusioned as to what I believed America was. I know that this blog will not change anybody’s mind as to who to vote for. That is not my purpose today.
I have been a liberal my whole life. I have had many conservative/Republican/libertarian friends. As I love to talk politics, these friendships have led to may intelligent, passionate, and illuminating discussions as to what it means to be an American. My understanding of conservatism was molded by these discussions. I was told that it stood for fiscal integrity, patriotism, and a federal government that should be small and not interfere with basic rights as presented in the constitution. I was told that character matters and that a person should be allowed to rise to an economic level based on their ability. The election of Trump has exposed the underlying hypocrisy of these concepts, soured some and ended other of these friendships.
Under Trump, children have been taken from their parents and put in cages. This was not only depraved; it was done with such incompetence that we can no longer reunite 500+ of these kids with their parents as we did not keep adequate records. Most of my conservative friends disapprove of this but still support Trump.
Trump is trying to repeal Obama care and with this new supreme will likely succeed. I believe that health care is a right. No one should have to decide between food or rent and their longevity. I have had family go bankrupt over medical bills as their insurance was not adequate. We had a neighbor who was forced to work with a debilitating medical condition or not pay for the drugs that were vital to her survival. Does that make me a bleeding-heart liberal? So be it.
I am a Christian. Trump putting money in the plate with the wine and wafers, citing 2 Corinthian rather than second Corinthians, mocking evangelicals behind their backs, and holding a bible upside down during a photo-op in front of a church he does not attend after clearing the streets with tear gas, that alone tells me he is not. One of my devout Christian relatives told me that I didn’t know what is in his heart. Yes, I do. I am not stupid. For a Christian it is easy to tell. What Jesus would do? Would my savior brag about grabbing pussy, cheat on three wives, make fun of a persons with disabilities, and never take responsibility for anything. Jesus took responsibility for all of use when he died on the cross. Trump would call him a loser for doing that.
Trump called John McCain a loser. This is the same John McCain who was permanently injured after being shot down over North Vietnam, was tortured as a POW, then refused early release because of his comrades who would remain in captivity. I disagreed with many of McCain’s policies, but I would never in my wildest dreams call him a loser. My son enlisted in Navy when he was 18. He has risen though the ranks becoming a chief and is now a commander. He is now 46 and working on a Ph.D. and might just make captain before he retires. He is not a loser. How dare the commander in chief call any of them that served and gave the lives for this country losers. How can any true patriot support him?
Trump said that neo-Nazis marching in Charlotte with tiki torches and chanting “Jews will not replace us” were good people. He has incited AR-15 armed vigilantes to “stand by” incase he loses the election. If he wins this election it will be because he has suppressed voters, damaged the U.S. Postal Service, and stuffed the courts with judges that owe their positions to him and his elected enablers.
Some of my friends voted for Trump because he was a phenomenally successful businessman. Not true, he as a phenomenally successful crook. He was not in the Casino business to make money; it was to launder money for the Russian mob. His primary business interest is in high end real estate, which is another way to launder money. He cheats on his taxes and bilks’ contractors out of what is owed to them. He has gone bankrupt multiple times and never lost a penny. He now personally owes and an estimated 400 million to God knows who. If reelected his will not pay off this debt, you will.
They chant and wear red hats that say “make America great again”. I grew up during the time of this so-called American greatness. It was not great for everybody. In my hometown blacks were not welcomed, they had to be out of town by sunset. In the 1930’s it was a hot bed of the Klan. When I was in high school a black weather bureau employee was reassigned to my city. He wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper stating it was not his choice to move there and that he was not going to cause any problems. My people, yes, my people loving responded by burning a cross on his lawn. I attended a near by college in a more tolerant town. A few black also attended that same college and one confided in me that he would never, ever go the 15 miles into my hometown. Things have not changed much in the forty years since I left. When Obama visited a town 90 miles to the north, a comment was posted by one of my Facebook friends that he was lucky not to have flown into my hometown as Air Force One would have been spit on. My hometown is not located in Alabama or Mississippi, it is Medford, Oregon. With Trump this behavior has become worse and acceptable to many.
I am a retired Ph.D. scientist, with 40 years of reading and publishing research. Trump and his ilk deny global warning and epidemiology because of greed bordering on insanity. I first saw a paper linking global warning to fossil fuel use in 1983. The first thing a Republican, Ronald Reagan, did when he got to the White House was to take the solar panels off the roof. The evidence for this long-term disaster is now overwhelming, yet Trump and his cohorts want to “drill baby drill” and frack till the cows come home. Corvid 19 is going to kill many more before it is over. Trump belittles those who wear masks, hold super spreader events, and has no plans to slow this disaster. Every time I see one of these fools on Facebook tell me that it is their right not to wear a mask, masks don’t work, and that the virus will go away after the election, I reply with my mantra: “shut the fuck up and wear the God damn mask”. At least there were some of my “friends” who I didn’t have to drop.
As a liberal, scientist, and caring human being, I have been called a lib-tard and a snowflake. Because I believe that a woman’s has a right to do what she wants with her body, I have been equated with a baby killer. My Christianity has been questioned by a family member because I am a Democrat. For most of my life I have not let politics effect friendships. With Trump this has all changed. Surprisingly, I find it hard to truly hate Trump. He is what he is. I have always found it difficult to hate the mentally challenged. Nor do I hate those who still support him. You are who you are. What I regret is how long it took me to see who you really are.
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