John Samuel Tieman: I’m Done — A Declaration

Last week, a friend encouraged me to be patient with Trump supporters, to continue to dialogue with them. But how do we dialogue with people who view dialogue itself as dangerous? That’s one problem.

The other is this. Donald Trump has been in office for a year. I am out of patience with his supporters. I try dialogue while Trump supporters continue to support this man’s hate. So, I’m done. It’s an election year. I want the Trump supporters defeated.

Therefore, let me address Trump supporters directly. I have rather randomly chosen a few incidents and examples, the sum of which would make any reasonable person break with Trump. In the spirit of Americanism, let me borrow from a document you may or may not recognize. “The history of the present [Trump] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.”

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You continue to back a man who, verifiable statistics conclude, lies an average of five times a day in public.

You continue to back a man who may eliminate the health care of nine million children.

You continue to back a man who promised to ban Muslims from this country – then did.

You continue to back a man who found it difficult to denounce Nazis and the Klan.

You continue to back a man who described Frederick Douglass as someone “who’s done an amazing job that is being recognized more and more.”

You continue to back a man who criticized a Jewish reporter for asking about a wave of anti-Semitism.

You continue to back a man who rescinded a policy that lets transgendered students use the bathrooms of their choice.

You continue to support a man who conducted national security business, about North Korean nuclear missile testing, while in public at Mar-a-Lago.

You continue to support a man who fired F. B. I. Director James Comey while Comey was investigating whether or not Trump’s campaign colluded with the Russians.

You continue to support a man who conducts national affairs over Twitter.

You continue to support a man who issued an executive order to initiate an investigation of voter fraud in the 2016 presidential election, this despite the fact that there is no evidence of voter fraud in an election he won.

You continue to support a man who forgot to mention the Jews in his statement on Holocaust Memorial Day.

You continue to support a man who tweeted, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U. S. manufacturing non-competitive.”

You continue to support a man who tweeted, “Fracking poses ZERO health risks”.

You continue to support a man whose vice-president said, “Charles Darwin never thought of evolution as anything other than a theory. He hoped that someday it would be proven by the fossil record but did not live to see that, nor have we.”

You continue to support a man who plans the rollback of Dodd-Frank.

You continue to support a man who formally announced he will end the Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals, D. A. C. A., the legal protections granted to roughly 800,000 people known as “Dreamers.”

You continue to support a man who is accused of molesting over a dozen women.

You continue to support a man who supported Roy Moore.

You continue to support a man who retweeted Islamophobic videos that originated with the neo-fascist Britain First.

You continue to support a man whose new tax law could result in a $1 trillion deficit.

My list could have a hundred bullet points. I’ve not even gotten into all the Russian stuff. Or attacks upon the press. Or the embrace of “alternative facts.” But I’m done with dialogue.

I read the news, and, frankly, if you still support Trump, I don’t understand you. Do you think Trump is bringing your job back, a man who is cited for 24 violations since 2005 for failing to pay overtime or minimum wage? Trump, the man who paid a contractor $70,000 on a $231,000 deal, nearly bringing that man to ruination? That’s your hero?

Let me be absolutely clear. If you continue to support Trump after this year, after all we have seen, then I do think you’re a racist. I do think you are a homophobe. A xenophobe. An Islamophobe. And, if you’re male, I do think you are a misogynist, and, if you’re a woman, then I think I don’t know what to think about a woman who supports Trump. I do think that you are, in fact, quite comfortable with the Klan, the Nazis, with white supremacists. In any case, I am tired of trying to dialogue with folks who want nothing more than to build a wall.

Oh, yeah, and you Republicans don’t get to be the party of Christianity ever again. With Trump around, Jesus would worry about getting paid for His carpentry. And Mary Magdalene would worry about getting her booty grabbed.

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Copyright 2018 John Samuel Tieman