We’re Americans and we deserve something more than a misogynistic, two-bit conman for president, someone with kindness and empathy, who knows inclusion and equanimity, rather than hatred and cruelty.
The shortsighted indifference of the American voter is astonishing. Republicans have made themselves into the party of the billionaires and the white underclass, the poorly-educated, racist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant has-beens who depend on government handouts while biting the hand that feeds them.
Trump is their savior, who’s going to make them great “again,” though they have never been anything but low information and never will be anything else. Trump and his anti-American party exploit these people, fill their weak heads with lies and delusions about Democrats to harvest their votes.
Despite all his setbacks, this remains Trump’s main strength. He is the pied piper of these Americans, who will mindlessly follow him to their own doom. I’m sure there’s some “very fine people” that don’t fall into this category but voted for him because they didn’t want the supposed “communist/socialist.”
Our capitalist economy is doing very well, they conveniently lied about it, led on by a dishonest billionaire, with relentless disinformation and a complicit media.
We are not vermin or the “enemy within.” The Democratic Party has no far left.
People who believe in science and support health care for everybody and the right of Palestinians to live, or at the least not to be slaughtered by weapons that don’t originate here, are not radicals. People who want to preserve the habitability of the planet for future generations are not radical. People who think everybody should have a living wage, a right to education, a place to live and enough food to eat are not radical.
All of these things are just common sense, humane policies that some corporations and rich people and their legislative representatives fight tooth-and-nail because they view helping everybody as taking money away from them. That’s the Republican way.
They routinely endeavor to force their unpopular agenda down the throats of the people they are hardly even pretending to represent. Just like gun reform and reproductive choice and voting rights, the GOP is the anti-democratic, pro-totalitarian party. Gerrymandering and their blatant misinformation proves we should disabuse ourselves of illusions that Republicans want power for any purpose other than to exercise power, and to exercise it arbitrarily, unfairly, and with vindictiveness.
This is known as “performative cruelty:” putting on a show of belittling or humiliating people to make oneself or one’s group appear stronger. No integrity or fairness.
We saw it all in the campaign and the last Trump term, and if that’s any measure, as in 2017, on Jan. 20, 2025, Trump is going to put his hand on a book he has never read, take an oath he’s not going to keep, to defend a document he will constantly violate. I hope I’m wrong, not angry, but sad.
John Porcher, Salt Lake City
