US Election: A long time out while I’m pissed

O ver the weekend, I began to write my thoughts/analysis of the election. As sometimes happens, I stopped in the middle. Typically, when that happens, I’m telling myself something isn’t quite feeling right to me.

During my stoppage, I realized what was missing. I was pissed and my writing didn’t reflect my anger. So, I’m putting that post aside for now – I’ll get back to it.

I’m pissed because we elected a convicted felon who ran on a platform of dividing not uniting us. I’m pissed because this is a man who disrespects too many of his fellow Americans.

Yes, I know a majority of my fellow Americans who voted, voted for Donald J. Trump. And, yes, I accept the election was fair and honest, as I have accepted every other election I’ve witnessed in my 74 years on this earth.

I don’t care that he expanded his support among so many demographics. I understand those folks were voting for a better economy. I get that.

I voted for Kamala Harris not because she was the model of someone I would have built to be the next president. I voted for her because – here I’ll say it – she is not Donald Trump.

I would have voted for a turnip if that was Trump’s opponent.

Personally, the economy, for me, is fine. But I get that I’m not the average American. I’ve been lucky in my life and I don’t need to count my pennies when buying eggs. And I know there are millions of others in this country who need to count those pennies. People, understandably, voted for their selfish interests, which is what happens in elections.

I get it.

But the man who they are putting their faith in is a spoiled rich kid who’s never been held accountable for anything.

Nothing.

He was and remains a con man, a charming (to some) charlatan who knows how to sell a product, even a product that’s too expensive and you don’t need (Trump Steaks, Trump University, Trump watches, Trump bibles, etc. etc.)

He was scared to death to lose because he knew accountability was weeks away for him on many allegations made against him, some of them already proven in court. Some of them he’s already been penalized legally for.

Those weren’t pretend cases. They were real. The allegations were real. The guilty verdicts were real, not decided in the Oval Office but in courts of law, presided over by fair judges.

This man took choice away from women.  And he did it with intention. It served his selfish political self-interest to take that right away.  His BS about turning the issue back to the states “like EVERYONE wanted” is just that – bullshit.

A handy excuse to, again, try to escape accountability.

People remember what a good economy we had in Trump’s first term. It was good for a while – that was the economy President Obama left behind. Maybe it would have been better for Trump, too, if there had been no pandemic. Another issue he bollixed up because he’s a selfish man who told us it “will just go away.”

It didn’t. What went away were far too many lives of our relatives, friends, neighbors.

I have Trump-voting friends. I spoke with a couple over the weekend. Some said, we agree on more issues than we disagree. That’s true.

But we disagree on the biggest “issue.”

That is that we just elected a selfish convicted felon who is out for himself, not for the people. A man who lies with almost every breath he takes.

He might be right on some of the issues. Yes, he might be. But he is a bad man. He has demonstrated that to all of us, even those of you who choose not to believe it.

He campaigned on expelling illegal immigrants from our country. OK, I can’t argue with that. But after he was elected he said he wouldn’t put a price tag on that endeavor. Why? Because then maybe it wouldn’t sound like such a great idea. Once again, no accountability. No discussion of how it will be done, who specifically he will toss out. How many tax dollars it will take.

What does he do if he ever succeeds in that endeavor (which, experts say, he doesn’t have time to complete in his last term)? And who’s going to do those jobs those illegal immigrants are doing? How does that affect our economic well-being? Is tossing them all out the only answer? It’s the simplest, I admit, and the easiest to sell to an angry voter.

Again, though, I digress – talking about issues. That would be a healthy, productive discussion to have. Trump refuses to have it because he knows the answers aren’t good.

The issue is this man, Donald John Trump, does not deserve to sit in the Oval Office because he is a bad man. A dishonest man. Not even a smart man, according to those who have worked with him.

Trump supporters, I’m not going to argue about it anymore. He’s a bad man. Personally, and professionally. Bad. And he has been bad his whole life. You can think differently. It’s still America and you have that right. Just as I have the right to feel as I, and millions of others, do.

His suck-ups in Congress now are following lockstep with him, afraid he will turn his supporters against them.

Senators are giving up their rights and caving to his demanding them to allow recess appointments – in other words the right to appoint whoever he wants without any advice and consent from the Senate. Anyone.

Step one on the road to having a monarch who just gives orders and his minions say, “Thank you, sir.”

We have checks and balances in our system of government for a reason. But Trump is demanding those checks and balances be tossed out so he can do whatever he wants to do.

Presidents don’t get to do that. Monarchs do.

I’m pissed. Gotta tell you, I won’t get over being pissed. To me, he has no redeeming value. We have just put into office a man who I cannot tell my children, grandchildren or great-grandchildren to respect or model themselves after.

That’s a key requirement, in my world, to be the President of the United States. Someone I respect. We can disagree on the issues but I need to respect the President and why he or she believes differently than I do.

So, my Trump-supporting friends, comment all you want. I do not plan to respond. This isn’t an argument to me. It’s a core value. I cannot, will not, be convinced otherwise.

You voted for a bad man. A bad man who has demonstrated how bad he is. A bad man who I’m guessing will be even worse now that he’s had one term in office and realizes some of what he needs to do to be the “strong man” leader he admires.

He won a free and fair election – which is what this country is all about.

But he won it with lies and deceit.

That is not what this country is all about.

GOING FURTHER

• Trump’s false or misleading claims total 30,573 over 4 years | THE WASHINGTON POST

• The Strange Case of Donald J. Trump: A Psychological Reckoning, by Dan P. McAdams | Oxford University Press

Sources:

▪ This piece was first published in The Screaming Moderate and re-published in PUBLIC SQUARE UK on 12 November 2024 under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. | The author writes in a personal capacity.

▪ Cover: Flickr/Gage Skidmore. (Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.)