Seriously, Guys. Why Trump?

Regarding Donald Trump, I have one question to which I can't get a straight answer. What do you all like so much about him? Sure, he's had some economic success, but the degree of that success has been highly exaggerated by the president and his administration. He's claimed it's the best in history. It's not. That's just a fact and I'd be happy to provide the data on that if you don't want to take my word for it (message me... we'll chat). Even if we do have a healthy economy, is that necessarily the only measuring stick for a good president?

Here are some other things he's done. He's harmed relationships with allies, abandoned the Kurds, acted inhumanely toward children of immigrants and asylum seekers (who he collectively called drug dealers, criminals, and rapists), tried to ban "Muslims" (his words) from entering the country as if they're all terrorists, allowed the longest government shutdown in history in an effort to keep a campaign promise for a wall that he swore we wouldn't be spending anything on as a country, attempted to declare a national emergency for that same wall, attempted to use a portion of military money to build that same wall (his own party, even Mitch McConnell, didn't want him to do it, but none of them had the guts to stop him), he basically refused to condemn white supremacists in Charlottesville until he was badgered into it and then backtracked on his condemnation later, publicly suggested to China and Ukraine to investigate the Bidens, said to Russia "if you're listening" to hack into Hillary's emails, has irresponsibly threatened to pull us out of our NATO agreement (dangerous), pulled us from the Paris Climate Accord (global warming and climate change are real... DEBATE ME), has outpaced Obama with executive orders in his first term (a thing Republican voters and officials both freaked out about when Obama was doing it), attempted to host the G7 Summit at his own Doral resort (a clear violation of the Emoluments Clause), referred to certain countries as "shit-hole countries," has praised leaders like Putin, Erdogan, and Kim Jong-un while shitting on leaders of allies like France, Canada, Germany, and Australia. In one of the more alarming actions in my opinion, he has attacked the free press as "enemies of the state," language historically used by dictators.

The last one I'll mention (but lord knows there is more), is this recent thing that got him impeached by the House. Trump made that infamous call to Ukraine on July 25, 2019. He did uphold aid to Ukraine. That is a fact. Evidence seems to suggest he did plan to keep it upheld until the whistle-blower complaint was filed and it was clear he had gotten caught. The complaint was filed on August 12, 2019. Trump learned about the complaint on September 9, 2019 (with some claiming earlier, September 7). He released the aid two days later on September 11, 2019. We all heard the same testimony. We all read the same "transcript." Those of us who saw evidence for wrongdoing were victims of constant gas-lighting attempts from the GOP. Those who love Trump refused to consider anything but what the GOP was telling us. They were telling us it was all a sham; a hoax. They told us that there was nothing there. Those in the GOP who conceded Trump did do the things of which he was accused told us those things were not impeachable offenses. Thank goodness, not all of us are buying that. This whole impeachment thing was a giant example of confirmation bias on the part of those who are loyal to the president. Confirmation bias is the tendency to seek out and give preference to information that affirms a person's previously held beliefs, while shutting out the information that conflicts with that belief. Then there was the obstruction. Trump, in an unprecedented move for a president under investigation, prevented people close to him from testifying when subpoenaed; people who could have quickly cleared his name and put an end to this all before it even really got started. Why did he do that? Why wouldn't he want to clear his name if he was innocent? If it was out of pure defiance, then this man is more stubborn and prideful than we could have ever imagined.

Here's my take on the man. Despite all that has happened recently there are some thoughts I've had about him since the day he began campaigning: He doesn't represent all of America. He represents and panders to one demographic. That demographic is white, Christian, and straight. He plays on the fears of those people with the promise of restoring what they see as some loss of station in this country, the loss of their superiority over all other groups disguised as an erosion of "American" values, which is a wrongheaded notion in the first place given our diversity, which has grown exponentially since that time in the past when whites and blacks had different drinking fountains and the gays kept it to themselves. He promises to erase the imaginary emergency that is the scourge of violent crime he claims is coming from immigrants. Data exists! This is not a thing! But when fact-checkers point this out, Donald Trump derides it as "fake news" and his supporters believe him without a second thought. Scary.

I just couldn't then and still can't get behind all of that. Anyone with a shred of empathy inside of them shouldn't be able to get behind that. To make matters more confusing, many of these are the people who claim to live in the example of Christ. Can those people honestly read the Beatitudes and say with a straight face that Donald Trump is the man who best represents those values? To me, that is absolutely mind-blowing. I'm not a religious man by any stretch, but I know Christianity. I was raised with it. I've read the Bible. I used to listen to the Bible on tapes and read along with it as a kid. I read it in its entirety throughout the course of my adult life. I know the good things that are promoted by Christ in the Bible. The words of Christ, what Christians claim to pattern their lives by, are full of universally good messages for the most part. Despite that they may vehemently argue the opposite, these people are not heeding that guidance in their support of this man nor the ugly manner in which he has inspired them to behave. At any rate, this country doesn't belong to those people exclusively. It belongs to all citizens no matter their race, religion, sexual orientation, or identity. That so many people love this guy really bums me out. It truly exposes how tribal we have become and how little so many of us care about those who either don't look like us or are ideologically different from us in this country. Make no mistake, this division didn't start with Trump. I'm not saying that. He's just exacerbated it immensely.

I don't think all Trump supporters are inherently bad people. I just think they've gotten sucked into this current environment of tribal frenzy. Many people on the left have done the same to the other end of the extreme. Almost all of us have been guilty of it in some way or another, I'd guess, whether it's publicly or privately. Personally, I'm trying to wake up from this horrible nightmare of tribalism. We have to be able talk to one another again, but civilly. We have to be able to listen to one another's grievances without becoming defensive (provided that person is not being blatantly racist, misogynistic, or homophobic; those people deserve all the ridicule the world has to offer and more). More importantly, we have to find a way to discover that empathy within us; the ability to put ourselves in the place of others. We have lost our way as a people and this guy isn't doing anything to help us find our way back, but rather, he's driving us further apart. Despite this, many want him to be elected again, which is a very realistic possibility. But why not support a person who wants to unite us? Support someone who believes in compromise, Republican, Democrat, Independent, or whatever, and doesn't just constantly relish in the thought of making his ideological opponents suffer? This relish has almost universally become shared by his supporters and by residual affect, the suffering of those Trump supporters have come to be relished by those who loathe President Trump. The environment we live within presently can't be sustained. I hope this sad time passes and we can all come back together soon. This democratic republic's survival depends on it. We are in jeopardy of turning this nation into a failed experiment. We will join Athens in the history books as a nation who allowed itself to be torn apart by its own people. When Benjamin Franklin answered the question of what kind of government the founders had created and responded with, "A republic, if you can keep it," he knew that it was fragile because it depends on the American people to keep it healthy. We're not doing that at the moment. We must change. We can only hope logic takes hold and we shake our minds loose from this daze of division.