“I have just committed the greatest stupidity of my life;
I have allied myself with the greatest demagogue in world history.”
– Alfred Hugenberg, after helping Adolf Hitler become chancellor, 1933
Donald Trump will be our 47th President. If you’re celebrating, you’re despicable.
Celebration of Trump’s victory is a celebration for the deaths of pregnant women,the annihilation of war torn places like Ukraine and Gaza and the removal of legal Americans from our soil.
It’s a celebration of the collapse of American principles — fair courts, rule of law and democracy.
Sexual abusers get restraining orders. Felons can’t vote. Pedophiles can’t go near playgrounds. Impeached politicians are cast aside. Bankrupt business owners are described as failures. Committing treason sends you to prison.
But we knew that already. Americans already knew Trump’s political beliefs and the character he was. Over 70 million Americans knew it all when they cast a ballot for him, according to the Associated Press.
The party that once stood for law and order, for less taxes, for less government in our lives, I don’t recognize the Republican party from my textbooks. This election has proved that party died, reborn to stand behind a criminal, raise costs and write legislation that restricts our freedoms.
That old Republican party had some valid points. This new party has none.
The punch line of this story? Naturally, it’s to ask what any of this may have to do with us.
Republicans will soon hold a majority in the House, Senate, Supreme Court and Presidential seat. Until 2026, Trump and his party can pass essentially any bill they want to, with the Supreme Court able to uphold them.
In the Supreme Court, we can expect to see either two or three justices retire, allowing Trump to appoint new conservative justices for decades to come, seeing more decisions like Roe v. Wade and Chevron v. NRDC being overturned.
The policy that would be passed is the worst part of it all.
A national abortion ban is on the books, along with the destruction of government agencies like the Board of Education. Trump has promised unqualified people like former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be the head of the Food and Drug Administration, Elon Musk to receive his own government agency and a former professional football player to be head of US missiles.
A blank check could be written to Netanyahu for him to bulldoze Gaza and the West Bank, and all aid could be stripped from Ukraine, letting Russia reconquer the Eastern Bloc. At home, Trump’s lack of knowledge on what a tariff is will ruin consumers.
He’ll pardon himself of all his crimes, as he continues to espouse authoritarian rhetoric.
But who do we criticize? Trump voters or Republican elites?
Some of my fellow Americans actively want my minority friends out of the country, my girl friends dead, my queer friends converted, my education stunted. I used to hold Republican voters to a higher standard, but evidently, I can’t anymore.
At the same time, the Republican party could’ve prevented this. The old Republican party would have. But they’ve chosen to kill their former values, in favor of Trump.
Do we criticize people and groups like The New York Times for sanewashing Trump, or Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk for colluding with Trump in favor of their own profits?
Alas, this article is written as a eulogy.
I once saw Republican voters as not much different than Democratic ones like me — just with a few different core values. Today, those core values are un-American and treasonous. They’re hateful and violent.
I once saw the Republican party as a respectful one. Today, it’s not even a shadow of its old self.
I live in fear under the next administration. Because fascism and authoritarianism don’t need a coup. They just need to win an election.
