I’m beyond angry. I’m having an existential crisis. I literally don’t know how to move forward.
I barely slept last night.
I remember four years ago, after President Biden won the last presidential election, people were dancing in the streets of New York City. Last night it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
This is about more than mere policy differences. While we can disagree on policy, what we are about to witness will be catastrophic. Trump already told us what he would do in his Project 2025 blueprint and he’s been telling us throughout the campaign. Deport millions of illegal immigrants (and perhaps some legal immigrants who merely “look” illegal). Destroy the climate. Ban abortion. Leave NATO. Kill Obamacare.
We’re already seeing the damage and he hasn’t even taken office yet. Two hurricanes in Florida in one week. Texas women dying because they can’t receive necessary healthcare.
Sure Trump voters will tell you they were motivated by “the economy” (despite the fact that the American economy is currently the envy of the world, according to no less than The Economist) and immigration (whose bipartisan bill Trump torpedoed), but I believe there was also an undercurrent of racism, misogyny and transphobia. Not to mention a cohort of young men who voted for Trump because they think he’s a “tough guy” and are resentful that women now outnumber men in colleges and universities and are making more money.
I can’t get past the fact that we all watched Trump try to overturn a free and fair election. That in itself should be disqualifying. Everything else is beside the point. And yet a majority of Americans still voted for him.
In spite of the hateful rhetoric we saw and heard at his Madison Square Garden rally and have seen and heard throughout his campaign, they still voted for him.
I blame Mitch McConnell, whose craven need to maintain a Republican majority in the Senate led him to not vote to impeach Trump when he had the chance, even after explicitly blaming Trump for January 6 on the floor of the Senate.
I blame Merrick Garland for dragging his feet in prosecuting Trump, because Democrats were worried about appearing “partisan,” whereas Trump and his fellow Republicans had no such qualms. Trump and his Republican sycophants stepped on every norm that had previously existed and, in some cases, actually broke the law.
There was a brief moment after January 6 when it seemed like saner heads might prevail, starting with McConnell’s speech on the Senate floor. But it ended when Kevin McCarthy, after similarly blaming Trump for January 6, went down to Mar a Lago to kiss Trump’s ring.
I’m done trying to reason with the Trump cultists. These people are immune to facts.
There was a thread by David Roberts on Twitter that I felt expressed my feelings perfectly (I’ve been debating whether or not I should stay on Twitter, which has become a cesspool of right-wing hate and misinformation since Elon Musk took over, but that’s a whole other conversation), so I’m reprinting it here in its entirety:
I'm glad I don't have to write an endorsement piece, because I really wouldn't know how to go about it. Ever since 2015, when Trump descended the escalator, I have had the same feeling, which I've never quite seen articulated, so I will briefly try:
It's basically this: Trump is so obviously, manifestly repugnant -- his words, his gestures, his behavior, his history -- that it strikes me like a tsunami. It's a kind of total, perfect, seamless repugnance that I've never witnessed before in my life. Which means ...
... pointing out some particular piece of the repugnance & arguing against it feels ... surreal, I guess. "He has regularly sexually assaulted women, almost certainly raped a few, and ... I think that's bad."
... if you think rape is bad, you will already oppose Trump. If you don't, what could I possibly say to reach you? I don't understand your moral universe, your basic precepts. We are different in a way so fundamental that I literally don't know how to speak to you.
It's the same with all of it. I could point to some obvious bit of repugnance -- "I think it's bad to cheat every small business you interact with." -- but ... it's obvious. You've surely seen it yourself. And it doesn't matter to you. So how is me pointing it out going to help?
You see what I'm getting at? I feel like there's nothing I can say about Trump that isn't obvious, that isn't well-understood public knowledge. If you still support him at this point, you clearly don't *care* about all that stuff. And if you don't care about all that stuff ...
... then ... what do you care about? How does your brain operate? What does morality mean to you? What language could possibly reach you? What could cause you to care? I genuinely don't know. It's like when you're trying to speak w/ someone who doesn't speak your language ...
... and you respond by just repeating yourself, louder. "HE'S A CAREER CRIMINAL WITH 34 FELONY CONVICTIONS." It's pointless. They *heard* you. They just don't understand, don't care. You're assuming they share the premise "criminal rapists are bad," but they don't.
And so, if you're that far apart -- if you do not share basic, fundamental moral precepts, if you live in different moral universes -- how can you communicate? Literally, what do you say?
So I could write the 5000th piece once again listing Trump's sins -- "He's explicitly said he loves dictators & wants to be one!" -- but they've all been listed a million times. His supporters don't care. And I wouldn't know what to write to make someone care or be decent.
That's where I've been ever since 2015: feeling like language is pointless. Like the reality I inhabit is so far from the reality Trump supporters inhabit that discourse between us is impossible, or at least futile. The divide is unbridgeable.
This is a genuinely depressing & unsettling place to be for someone whose whole *life* is words, who was raised & trained to believe that language can, with care & attention, bridge any gap, excavate & find commonalities among any people, no matter how far apart.
Anyway. I just wanted to get that feeling down. Maybe some of you feel it too. In the meantime, my grand manifesto against electing Trump amounts to this: [points at Trump]
