It's just crazy to me how many people support this guy. On my way to work this morning I saw a car plastered with MAGA and Latinos4Trump written all over the window.
Yeah It's beyond comprehension for me to see that so many people may be still supporting him
at this point.
See 2016 was one thing, and I do understand voting against a candidate for real or perceived unsuitability, and I do understand disillusionment, and there was plenty of that on both sides of the major party fences in 2016. There was a very unusual confluence of a lot of different currents and circumstances in 2016. I still believe we'll never untangle for sure the "why" of Trump having become our president in 2016, and I've never thought political strategists should extrapolate anything at all from his victory.
What I don't understand right now though? Any American who votes for Trump after really looking at Trump's performance and behavior in 2017-2020, and at the behavior of assorted high profile Republican House members and Senators..... and at Trump's revolving door cabinet and his manner of replacing (or, not replacing) the ones he fired or who resigned in the wake of a string of ethics investigations.. and at his non-leadership in this country's efforts to cope with the still dangerous coronavirus pandemic... and at his nonstop, pathological level of lying.
We did not used to be a nation of people unable even to agree on what is a fact, never mind what it may mean or suggest... and Trump is the first president in my awareness who has focused 100% of the time on using the White House as a hyperpartisan bully pulpit and campaign platform. There is no instance of which I'm aware when a GWBush or Barack Obama deliberately poured the gasoline of hatred on an American fire. None. Sure they both made gaffes and had unpopular policies. But Donald Trump has grudge lists, brain farts, fantasies of omnipotence and he routinely airs any and all of them at will from his Twitter account. Whoever mistakes that stuff for jokes or reality TV is doing this nation a disservice.
And then there is the huge disparity of what Trump says he has done in the way of MAGA! for his rally base, versus what the Federal Register says he has done TO them and to other ordinary Americans. Any reading of some of those rule changes makes it clear that the full and negative impact is still down the road apiece. Not all of them are easily reversible.
Sometimes one has to put on a critical thinking hat and step back and look at the real forest and the actual trees. It's not all just about gotcha politics and supporting a completely unqualified candidate "because I can, so fuck you!"
Sometimes it's about thinking that there is after all something by original design that is exceptional about the USA... and that it belongs to all Americans, not just the ones who look like, behave like, act like the person we see in the mirror every morning.
Our entire Constitution was designed to prevent tyranny... especially one created by a power-abusing autocrat with a minority following and a bunch of court lackeys in tow.
So this is one of those times that the citizens of the USA get to exercise a Constitutional right to say "enough already, pack up, get out" at the polling place, when an incumbent has demonstrably failed in his sworn duties and disappointed too manyAmericans. Exercising a thoughtful vote helps preserve a Constitution that was never meant to be some kind of rubber stamp for an autocratic incumbency. It was meant to preserve our right to try to throw bad apples out peacefully.
I hope we can manage to remember in days ahead that freedom and anarchy are not the same thing. We are a nation that has chosen to live under rule of law and a people who make their choice of lawmakers known with ballots, not bullets.
