I'm sitting here trying to focus on work, but it's not happening in an productive way. Going into this election, I was thinking that the past four years seem to have genuinely motivated people to vote because the past four years have been awful because of Trump. I figured that it would be a crushing defeat for Trump, and we could sit back and watch as lawyers finally put Trump where he belongs: in prison for the rest of his life to rot away in misery at the knowledge that history will remember him as the worst president. But sitting here looking at vote counts and how things are going, it seems like Trump still has a shot at winning. Not a technicality like in 2016 where he lost the popular vote but got the electoral college... but... a real win. It's terrifying, but not just because we might be subjected to four more years of division, hatred, science-denial, record profits for the super-rich while millions are unemployed and on the brink of losing homes or not being able to afford food.
It's terrifying because almost half of voting citizens actually think Trump is a better option than Biden. I keep just sitting here blinking as that thought rolls through my head. The sheer ridiculous volume of pure evil that pours out of Trump isn't enough to open these people's eyes. Or is it that they actually support racism, misogyny, bigotry LGBTQ folks, a ridiculous wealth-gap that hurts them, ignorance over knowledge (anti-science), bad business practices that lead to half a dozen bankruptcies for Trump businesses, and horrifying ineptitude in dealing a global crisis? It's so difficult to understand what's happening.
Trump keeps lying and saying the U.S. is handling the pandemic well. He's even making stuff up out of no where that things are turning around and getting better. He keeps spouting off that millions would have died if he hadn't closed the border with China. But that's also faulty logic. Do his supporters forget that he declared early on that he wasn't going to wear a mask? Trump made it a political issue... the leader of the country not listening to the advice given by the medical folks who actually have some expertise... some skill... some knowledge... relevant to the situation? That alone caused this country to have more spread and more deaths than it needed to have. Hydroxychloroquine? Trump pushed that as a cure... and it is not effective against Covid-19. Why does anyone believe anything this guy says about Covid-19? He has no skill relevant to the situation. He's not even a beginner, let alone an expert. And he suggested that injecting disinfectant into the body might be something doctors should look into. How are his supporters not terrified of how stupid that is? How much intelligence does it take to understand that injecting cleaning chemicls into our bodies would be super bad for us? Trump has to be colossally stupid. What he should have done was swallow his pride and listen to the medical folks telling him what needs to happen. He should have been telling all of us to wear masks, keep distant, avoid large gatherings, and do everything we can to help curb the spread of the disease. The leader of our country should care more about our health and well-being than anything else. Right? Or is it okay to his supporters that tens of thousands of people didn't have to die?
What's that you say? The economy? Trump is trying to keep businesses open? Guess what... if we had all worn masks and done what the experts (people who actually know what they're talking about) had said from the beginning, we'd be more like South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Germany, Iceland, and more. Business would be in a much better place because the number of infections would be so much lower... businesses could be more open. AND we wouldn't have so many people who would be alive if not for Covid-19. Trump made the situation worse for everyone in every way possible.
I hope that was enough to address how awful Trump has been with the Pandemic. And to think that anyone thinks that Trump was the right choice to make things better after he's failed so hard so far is astounding. But let's move to the next thing... the economy in general...
Donald is a businessman. It was part of what got him into office. But even then... that's confusing because he's a terrible businessman. He's quoted as saying that he plays the bankruptcy game flippantly... like it's a valid business practice. And he's apparently made it work to some degree, but it sounds like he would have been smarter to invest in an index fund when his daddy gave him money to start with. Also... why support a guy who doesn't pay his taxes? He told us he doesn't pay his taxes in the presidential debate against Hillary for the 2016 election by claiming it made him smart. Why would anyone be happy about a guy taking money away from the pool of tax money that is used to fund the military, road and bridge maintenance, law enforcement, social security, and so on? Do these people not realize that the rest of us then need to make up the difference? When rich people dodge taxes, the burden falls on the rest of us. Trump's way of thinking about taxes hurts all of us, and benefits only him.
How about the fossil fuel industry? Anyone with even a basic understanding knows that it's bad for the environment. We've known about pollution for a long time. We've known that burning fossil fuels for energy is causing damage. And climate science is definitive... there's a problem that we're causing. It's not in question like Trump and the fossil fuel industry want us to think. The situation is bad and bad events are already happening as a result. And there's Trump claiming there's such a thing as clean coal, or that windmills cause cancer and spew fumes that add to the carbon footprint... what a moron. How dumb do you have to be to believe that a big fan turning in the wind spews chemicals or that it can cause cancer? Anyway, we have Trump increasing tariffs on solar technology while removing restrictions on the fossil fuel industry. So, Trump supporters think it's a good thing for Trump to wreck the environment so fossil fuel magnates can make record profits? It's a good thing that coal miners are trapped in that dangerous damaging industry instead of being given training for more modern jobs that can support a better energy source? Trump's efforts don't benefit the working folks... they benefit the assholes at the top making huge money.
If you think that Trump has done well with the economy in his four years, please consider this: the stock market might be up a little... but who does that really benefit? Who owns all that stock? Your 401K got a little higher? Was it enough to retire ahead of time? Was it a significant portion of your yearly income? I'm trying to point out that the stock market is a terrible gauge for how well the economy is doing. How many millions of people are unemployed? How many millions can't afford health care? How many people are on the verge of losing their homes and are having a hard time feeding their families? The real gauge of a healthy economy in my mind is one where people can get jobs... where people can afford basic human needs... and where people aren't on the verge of losing everything. Is it really good that Jeff Bezos has nearly 200 BILLION dollars while his employees are trying to survive the pandemic working for a wage that doesn't support a comfortable life? These people are bringing us our ordered stuff. Do you think it's good that Bezos is treating his employees so poorly? That's the economy we're in. It's not Trump's fault... but he's making things worse. The stock market might be up, but so what? What does that have to do with the well-being of the vast majority of us?
Trump is a bad and unethical businessman, and the economy is not serving us... it's serving the super-rich. So, we have that he handled the pandemic poorly and that he handled the economy poorly. These are two huge issues that he should have handled well if anyone would continue to support him. Somehow, his supporters believe he DID handle them well despite reality being different. But let's keep going. What else has Trump royally screwed up?
Social issues. The biggest one is around racism in this country. And the most obvious first example is George Floyd. A police officer with two of his fellow officers standing by had control of a suspect. A normal expectation would be that the officer would arrest the suspect, and put him in the back of the police car so the judicial system could process the person in the legally fair way it's supposed to. But what happened? The officer knelt on the guy's neck while being recorded by onlookers for nearly EIGHT MINUTES. And it resulted in George Floyd's death. The police officer, Derek Chauvin, murdered George Floyd as plain as day. There was no danger to the officers at all. Floyd was being arrested for potentially using counterfeit currency, not that that matters... it's not the job of police to kill people... no matter the crime. Here... here's a link to the wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_George_Floyd. As of the writing of this blog post, Chauvin is charged with a couple forms of murder, but is out on bail with some restrictions.
So, there we have the match that lit the fire. Chauvin's murder of a man entirely and safely held in custody put a spotlight on the horrific and common events where police murder black people... and in general get away with it because of Qualified Immunity. It was the first police murder of a black person I really focused on. It was eye-opening, and sickening. Stories of children being shot and killed by police, while a seventeen year old white guy gets called a hero while they " target="_blank">raise huge sums of money for him. Let's not forget Breonna Taylor... killed by police while they were serving a warrant granted on her house because of an ex-boyfriend that didn't live there. Don't police investigate anything? Seriously, isn't that part of their job? And the officers aren't charged with any crime related to killing Breonna Taylor. Do a google search of your own. Find out how many horrifying crimes have been committed by police officers against black people... without the police getting in real trouble for it.
Black Lives Matter. It's not a suggestion that black lives matter more than others. Of course all lives matter, but right now white people don't have to be afraid that their kid is going to get shot by police in their front yard. White people don't have to be afraid of being killed in the street by police for wearing a hoodie and "seeming suspicious". Black people are suffering from mistreatment by our legal system that results in so many wrongful deaths... it's heartbreaking, but somehow there are people who fire back with arguments like "black people shouldn't do anything wrong if they want to be left alone" or "it's just a few bad apples". Those are shitty arguments. The first one is a misunderstanding of the situation that assumes the black person did something wrong, but it also completely ignores that polices ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO KILL PEOPLE! And dismissing it as a few bad apples dismisses that black people are dying! DYING! Is it okay for police to be killing black people? Oh if it's only a few? And what are the ratios exactly? How many bad apples do we just ignore and do nothing to change? Shouldn't we be making sure the police are ALL good and legally responsible for their actions? This is a big problem, and it should not be brushed aside.
So, after Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd, big protests started cropping up. These protests were correct. A good president that wants to help his people would have agreed that the event was horrifying, and that police reform was needed. Instead, he lied about the protests being violent, and sent in anonymous federal agents to abduct people and make things worse. And there were groups opposed to the BLM movement that rioted and caused other problems to take credibility away from BLM. Trump made the problem worse by siding with white supremacy groups and calling the protests a problem in democrat run cities. He pit people against each other and completely destroyed focus on the fact that there's something wrong with police departments... that police are murdering black people and getting away with it. The protests are completely valid and should be supported by government are there to represent all of us including the victims of the police. But Trump is a piece of garbage and he took it as a moment to divide the country further while doing everything he can to ruin an effort to help black people that are being horrifyingly abused by police. It's astounding that anyone who cares about anyone else might side with Trump. It's astounding that anyone that cares about the constitution thinks Trump handled this in an acceptable way... government isn't supposed to use federal agents against its people this way.
I'm having a hard time continuing to write this. I'm so angry at Trump and people who support him when it's so obvious that Trump is selfish, greedy, manipulative, and flat out evil. He is heard saying in recording prior to the presidency "Grab 'em by the pussy" and "I moved on her like a bitch". What decent human being is okay with that language and way of thinking? Would you want Trump anywhere near your wife, sister, daughter, or female friend? If someone else behaved that way, they'd be immediately ostracized from that group... shunned for being a piece of shit. But Trump still has support? That's okay for a president? Or how about making fun of disabled people? Or how about disrespecting P.O.W.s? Or how about disrespecting Gold Star Families (families who have lost members to military service)? Is that okay? There is the probable labeling of soldiers as losers and suckers. I admit it's not definite, but after all of Trump's disrespect to the military I wouldn't be surprised if it's completely true and Trump just doesn't want to lose the support by admitting it. Anyway... where was I?
It's funny too how religious organizations support Trump, citing his anti-abortion stance and his faith. But Trump has been married what? Three times? And he's had public affairs? Isn't that looked down on by religious people? Christianity as I understand it is supposed to be about treating people well. Jesus was about helping the poor and being kind right? So, Trump shouts about violent riots and blames BLM protesters that need help? Trump cages children and deports their parents instead of helping people who just suffered a harrowing journey to escape terrible situations? Instead of stimulus money going to help small businesses that needed it, it went to big organizations that didn't need it including churches that don't pay taxes in the first place? So, he helped the rich and let the people in need just keep suffering and falling apart. Trump is not a beacon of good to be held up... he's a cancer that's killing our country.
Think too about the people he put in power. Betsy DeVos who wants very much to crush the first amendment by inserting her religion in schools. If you think that's okay or even good, you don't care about the Constitution or equality. What would you think if it was Hinduism or Islam? Would that be okay? Why not? Why is your religion okay, but others are not? No. Public schools should NEVER push a religion. Where they should be in school is as part of academic study of history and culture alongside all religions.
Scott Pruitt, Steven Mnuchin, and others were put in positions of power over departments responsible for things they fought against in their previous professions or which is a huge conflict of interests. Scott Pruitt rolled back so many environmental protections for the fossil fuel industry that the EPA is barely a thing anymore. All for profits for companies that save money by polluting more instead of taking care of their messes.
I'm going to publish this for now. Might update it later to include more information about how bad Trump is. More links to more articles. But the idea is here. People who support Trump seem to be one of a few options...
- ignorant (unaware of Trump being a piece of shit)
- evil (agree with Trump's evil... like white supremacists)
- rich (benefit from Trump's policies)
One last thing I'll before I go. If you shout about AntiFa causing violence... you're being dumb. AntiFa is short for "Anti-Fascism". Our world war soldiers are all therefore AntiFa. Our modern soldiers are technically AntiFa. AntiFa is a concept about opposing fascist government. Trump is definitely a wanna-be dictator... he's a fascist that wants to control everything. So, since I oppose Trump, I am AntiFa. But that's just a concept... I'm not part of some organization. There IS NO ORGANIZATION. And if you are patriotic... you would be against fascism too.
