Speaking of Trump: What a crybaby. What a whiner. What a loser. You can’t really write or talk about the president without mentioning how juvenile and immature he is. In some ways like a toddler. In some ways like a snotty ten year old. In some ways like a schoolyard bully stealing lunch money; only this one grew up and is now stealing taxpayer money.
Expected stories about Trump: The president is furious. The president is angry. The president is fuming. The president is having a Twitter tirade. The president is finger pointing. The president never heard of someone. The president is attacking someone. The president is insulting someone. The president refuses to accept responsibility. The president is lying for the sixteenth thousandth time. The president is violating the law. The president is firing someone. The president is obstructing justice. The president is crying about something. How pathetic.
I’m tired of having a nut job for a president, someone who is clearly batshit crazy. I’m disgusted by his arrogance and his cowardice. I’m tired of the headlines. I’m tired of people having to defend his ignorance. Make excuses for his inhumanity. Pretend he is something other than what comes across every time he opens his mouth: an asshole.
And here’s another thing: I honestly have little sympathy for Trump supporters. I don’t care what they think. I don’t care about whatever it is they’re whining about. I don’t care what aggrieves them. I don’t like anything about them. I think there is something off about people still identifying with the Confederate flag or swastikas or the KKK. I don’t like nay sayers and deniers. I don’t think much of people who claim to hate government while relying on those little things like food stamps or Medicaid or Social Security or public education. I don’t like Southern states that are still fighting the Civil War while consuming up 65% of the tax dollars collected from the Northern states they apparently hate so much.
I don’t like the selfishness, meanness, continual hypocrisy or fake outrage. I don’t like people who look down on others less fortunate. I have no interest or respect for anti-intellectuals or for people who hate science. I don’t care about people who rewrite school books to match their anti-science, anti-fact lives. I don’t care for people who are willful in their ignorance, eager to hate others to make themselves feel better. Or care more about their personal stock portfolios and gilded lifestyles than the pain and suffering of those less fortunate.
They have all contributed to America’s crisis and I’m not talking about Covid 19. I’m talking about the weakening of our democracy. The empty-headed assault on reason. I’m talking about how 40% of the country is looking and sounding like Trump—Selfish. Corrupt. Cruel. Small minded. Ignorant. Churlish. Mean-spirited. Thoughtless. Bigoted. Racist. Petty. Vindictive. Sleazy. I’m talking about a relentless effort by right wing media to dumb down the American public until it will accept and believe the non-stop drumbeat of misinformation, propaganda and partisan hate directed at everyone who sees Trump for what he is: leader not of the free world, but the Trump Crime Family.
On the other hand I have listened and watched as the majority of Americans quickly understood the sacrifices necessary to survive a pandemic. I have been brought to tears over and over again by seeing and hearing about acts of bravery, kindness, inventiveness and concern for others. I have marveled at dramatic acts of selfless service, generosity, compassion and leadership from ordinary citizens across the country as well as governors and mayors and politicians who immediately understood what Trump is incapable of understanding: United we stand; Divided we fall.
It is a concept too difficult for Trump supporters. The notion that the country is stronger when we all pull together. Stronger when we share resources. Stronger when we share information. Stronger when we act in concert with each other, united against a common foe. When leading a country through a crisis, character matters. Integrity matters. Truth matters.
Sixty percent of America gets it. Forty percent doesn’t care.