To My Friends and Family who *Still* Voted for Trump

Four years ago, many people such as myself had a very rude awakening in wake of the 2016 Election. We found ourselves in uncertain times and confused about a great deal in regards to the world in which we lived. But despite all of that, I still had hope that we would get through it all, which is what eventually led me to take the time to write my first published article, simply titled, “To My Friends and Family who Voted for Trump” (huff.to/2fRR2RL).

In it, I made an argument, a plea really, for friends and loved ones from across the aisle to use their position from within the party to stand up against threats to the freedoms and rights of all Americans. We may have had disagreements in policy, or prioritized different issues ahead of others, but I truly believed that there were at least some areas in which we had obvious common ground, if not in a political party, at least by the very nature of being a decent human being.

Which is why these past four years have been so heartbreaking for so many of us.

We’ve seen the people who raised us, who taught us to treat others with respect, and who instilled the very foundation of compassion for our neighbors, throw those very ideals to the wayside for a cheap dalliance with a fraud.

You’ve seen this man mock a woman testifying about her sexual assault, and you sided with him. You’ve heard him on tape admitting to his own exploitation of women, and you dismissed it as “locker room talk.” You’ve witnessed him call women fat, ugly, wacky, wicked, nasty, bimbos, crazy, and deranged, and then instead of calling him out for being reprehensible, you repeated his words back in your own posts and tweets. You’ve done all of this, and yet still think he is presidential? That he thinks women deserve to be treated with respect?

You’ve watched him, in a crowd full of officers of the law, encourage them to be unnecessarily rough to their suspects, and then you sat back and wondered how the Murder of George Floyd happened. You’ve cheered him on as he told the NFL they should fire players for kneeling during the National Anthem in a form of peaceful protest, and then you clutched your pearls at the fact that we had to take to the streets in order to be heard. You shared videos and memes of him and his kids blaming the civil unrest on protesters, but then you immediately ignored video, after video, after video of thousands of police officers across the country abusing, illegally detaining, and even *killing* unarmed citizens. You watched these videos from your couch and took his side automatically without even bothering to check in with the people you pretend to care about who were in the middle of it? Does that sound like the actions of an informed citizen? Is it really any question why we say “Black Lives Matter” so loudly, when this president’s actions and your own active resistance towards the truth clearly shows that you believe that they don’t?

You’ve stood by as he has elected officials into his cabinet and inner circle that have direct ties to the companies and organizations in which they are meant to govern, and you called him smart. You’ve seen his own children work constantly in official capacities and the entire family profit off of the American people, yet you have had the audacity to try and act like even the worst accusations slung at Hunter Biden was even a fraction of what the Trump children are doing right in front of your face? You’ve seen him literally threaten and endanger those who stood against him and obstruct any sort of investigation into any of his taxes, foreign business investments, backroom dealings, and copious history of fraud, and you cried foul at how he has been treated? As evidence has piled up about numerous of his illegal activities, instead of trying to be objective and let the facts be heard, you refused to even glance at the details and decided that because he said it was “Fake News” that it must not be true? Does any of this sound like the behaviors or actions of an honest man? How do you expect us to react when you’ve thrown away logic, truth, and reason to blindly trust the world’s most prolific con artist?

And even now, when the majority of voters, both in sheer numbers, and in our Electoral College, have finally been given the chance to stand up and say enough is enough, you re-share his propaganda, believe his lies that have absolutely no evidence, and you still stand by the most despicable character in modern American Politics?

Why? I seriously don’t understand it. What unbreakable hold does this fraud have over you?

What is it about this man and his family that has you so obsessed with believing he is innocent and worthy of your praise? You’ve chosen to follow a charlatan instead of have faith in your own loved ones and community, and honestly, I don’t know how to get past any of this. I don’t know how to trust you anymore. I don’t know how to talk to you about my life or anything else going on in the world.

And it really breaks my heart to admit that.

In 2016, I felt confused, but I desperately clinged onto some sort of hope that as a family, as a country, that maybe we could get past our disagreements and find a path forward.

But four years later, you’ve taken that hope from me and replaced it with a sense of betrayal. You had the chance to stand up against hate, against tyranny, against the return of fascism, and instead you plugged your ears, closed your eyes, and refused to take a stand when we needed you the most.

We needed you, and you left us behind.

For four years we’ve been forced to watch as rights have been ignored, families torn apart from the inside out, and human decency simply discarded. And now we finally have a chance to try and undo this mess that you’ve been an accessory to, and to be entirely blunt, we need you to get out of our way.

We just don’t have time for you anymore. Your nonsense, your hate, your complete disregard for truth, honesty, or objective reality? It. Has. Been. Exhausting. We’ve tried to engage with you and find compromise over the last four years, and you’ve shut us out, mocked us, and belittled us every step of the way. You’ve replaced rational thought and logical comprehension with confirmation bias and QAnon conspiracy theories, and to be frank, we simply just don’t have the time or patience to sit back and debate facts with you anymore when people’s lives are literally hanging in the balance.

If you truly want to have your opinions heard, and have any chance of contributing to the direction in which this country heads, not to mention have even a remote chance at trying to rebuild the trust you’ve unceremoniously eroded over the past half decade, then you need to stop it with these asinine conspiracies and learn to debate with actual evidence and stop putting faith into some half-baked story you read on the internet.

I want to have faith that you can do that. That you can somehow begin to see the damage your actions and behaviors have caused to your relationships, your families, and this democracy as a whole. But unlike four years ago, I can’t say I have any hope left.