Trump’s remaining supporters can go to hell
I can’t tell you exactly when it happened, but sometime in the last couple of months or so I drew a subconscious line in the sand that my conscious mind has only recently become aware of. That line represents a point in time that can no longer be crossed by Trump apologists. In other words, if you are pro-Trump today, I want nothing to do with you – ever. There is no act of contrition you can make, no ritual of absolution you can follow, no Holy Land to which you can make a pilgrimage and return a renewed spirit from, that will impress me in the least. If you’re a Trump fan today you have missed the reclamation deadline. You are damned forevermore in my sight.
I am not so filled with hubris as to think this proclamation of mine means much to anyone (I leave that species of hubris to people like Donald Trump.) But I do think it’s time we all make a proclamation just like it, each in his or her own way. The outrages committed by Donald Trump have now reached a point so awful that the price for being a Trump acolyte ought to be equivalently high and every bit as horrid as Donald Trump himself is.
I have never personally known anyone who is a bigger criminal than Donald Trump. Chances are neither have you. After all, have you ever known a traitor who is also a rapist, a sexual assailant, a conman, a thief and a money launderer? Notice I left murderer off that list. I do not believe Donald Trump has ever committed a murder. There is no evidence whatsoever that I know of to suggest he has. But I do believe he is quite capable of murder, particularly if he could get away with it, and I have lots and lots of evidence to support this.
Trump loves to put people in harm’s way, for one. From calling the American press “the enemy of the people” to calling Hillary Clinton “crooked Hillary” to instructing crowds to rough up protestors with promises to pick up their legal fees, Donald Trump doesn’t give a crap about anyone’s safety but his own.
The final straw for me, the one that made me realize I am no longer prepared to forgive Trump supporters, was when Trump recently soiled the sacred ground of 9/11. Trump retweeted a tweet that took the words of congresswoman Ilhan Omar out of context and juxtaposed them with horrific images of the 9/11 attacks, implying she was being insensitive or indifferent to those attacks. The purpose of the tweet was to place Omar’s life in danger, and so it has.
By the time Trump retweeted that tweet, Omar had already been twice targeted for assassination, had her patriotism called into question by Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro, and has been unjustly linked to the 9/11 attacks by conspiracy theorists. Trump’s retweet was gasoline on the already white hot flame of murderous hatred directed at the congresswoman.
This is a man who is supposed to be President of the United States, a man who is supposed to protect the life of every American with equal regard, deliberately and maliciously placing the life of a United States Congresswoman in peril, simply because he doesn’t like her, simply because she’s a Democrat, a Muslim and a woman. If this is your idea of a decent man, the kind of man you want in charge of your country, then you will never, ever be a friend of mine.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.