I’m ashamed to be an American this morning. I’ll be taking the American flag off the front of my porch.
When the American people were given a choice of a thief, rapist and traitor vs. a decent human, they said, “Give us Barabbus.” In embracing a traitor, they themselves betrayed the country in the voting booth.
As a friend said, in 2016, it could be said that people didn’t really know or believe what Trump was. But in 2024, we know exactly what he is. We know he’s racist, homophobic and has abuses women (and that’s just the shortlist). So in embracing him, large swaths of America have said that’s what they are those things too. They can’t say, no, we’re not like that. They are exactly like that. The record shows it.
The record now shows that we support letting justice serve only the rich, that we believe ignorance belongs in the cabinet, that people believe billionaires such as Elon Musk can have their way with America.
Making things worse, this time the Trumpists will have experience and a running start and they won’t have the people around Trump to hold him back (didn’t voters notice that a majority of his cabinet members and military staff DIDN’T support him in this election? That never happens).
So if you’re a person of color, if you’re LGBTQ+, if you’re a woman, if you’re educated, if you’re an immigrant, your life just got worse.
If you’re a white male or poor, your life just got worse, too. You just may note realize it yet.
So what is to be done? well, the flag will come back out because I believe in America. I just don’t believe in Donald Trump’s America.
Then there will be work to be done. The Democrats have to oppose and tie up everything Trump and his cronies try to do with the same vigor that the Republicans tried to block Biden and Obama.
We will have to support the targets of Trump’s hate, especially the immigrants who have added so much to our communities and who have been slandered with outrageous lies. They’re the most vulnerable of Trump’s targets. If it reaches the point where civil disobedience is necessary, we need to be ready.
We need to support journalists and journalism. The only people who can reveal Trump and those like him for what they are are the members of the media. That’s why Trump targets the media so frequently. Sadly, Trump’s supporters don’t care about the truth, but it still needs to be told. The comparisons to fascism and Nazism are not misplaced.
We have to be aware that we are now in a cold civil war, as some have called it. Trump has opened up a Pandora’s Box of hate and exploited it. In supporting him, voters have said they support the divisiveness he brought.
His opponent delivered a positive message of cooperation and a vision of people reaching out to help each other. Trump preached revenge. We have to be ready when he tries to enact that.
The years of 2017-2021 were dark times in our country, ending up with the Pandemic. This time has potential to be even worse. We need to be ready.