Dear Trump Supporter
Hi! Okay, first of all, I'm not sure what you are doing here on Daily Kos, since this is a site that is dedicated to electing Democrats. However, you could have wandered over looking for some articles to troll. You could be looking for confirmation bias support about how ignorant Lefties are. Or you could just be lost. Either way, now that I have you, I'd like to take this opportunity to talk to you.
Don't worry – I'm not going to try and argue you out of your decision to vote for Donald J Trump. I'd much rather you didn't, of course, and I think you have an amazing (and far saner) alternative option in Hillary Clinton. I suspect you'd be shocked how many of her policies will be great for improving your life and your children's lives. But that's neither here nor there.
If you have well and truly made up your mind, I'm not going to try and argue you out of it. At this point there's probably nothing I can say that you haven't heard, and you still prefer your candidate, so be it.
But I do have something to tell you. I really feel like somebody ought to give you this one big clue that I'm about to share with you. In the interests of fairness.
If you really want Trump, if you really like the way he talks, and really think he's the guy for you, that he represents your views, then I say, go for it. Vote for Trump. In fact, don't stop there. Wear Trump buttons! Put a Trump bumper sticker on your car or truck or SUV. Grow a forest of yard signs. Get one of those red bill caps and wear it all the livelong day.
And don't be silent. Tell everyone you plan to vote for Trump. Bet sure all your friends know, and all your relatives, and all your co-workers and all the people you encounter at grocery stores and the dentist's office. Tell the mailman and your neighbors. Shout it to the moon, often and loudly!
Because everyone should know how you feel.
And because I want to know who you are.
You see, Trump is going to lose.
Now, some people say that the very fact that Trump has been so successful thus far, that he did win the Republican primary, that he's had so much free airtime and been courted so slavishly by the mainstream media is very significant. That it means Things Are Changing.
That it means you don't have to hide any more.
Some people are saying that the idea that Trump's platform and his talking points have gotten so much publicity, and that supposedly normal people, like for example so many journalists and TV people have let Trump and his surrogates go on and on and on, repeating lie after lie after lie practically unchallenged, well, that this means the country is coming to accept those ideas. That more and more people, mostly white people, are going to begin to embrace these ideas and think the same way.
White supremacists, sometimes referred to as the Alt Right certainly seem to be excited about it. They are positive that the tide is turning in their favor. The hoods can come off. And soon, perhaps the day Trump is inaugurated, the Liberals and the Blacks and the Gays and the Mexicans and the Jews and the Muslims and the ball-busting flat-chested Lesbian Women are going to realize that they lost... and become properly ashamed, or fearful, or contrite or at the very least shut up about their damn “rights”, which they stole from God-fearing Americans like you.
However, that is not what is going to happen.
Instead, Hillary is going to win.
And the Blacks and the Gays and the Mexicans and the Muslims and the Native Americans and the Women and all the rest are NOT going to shut up.
Ever.
Except, that is, when they see you. And not for long, just a pause, just a moment of recognition.
Because they are going to know you now. They are going to see you now. They are going to be well and fully aware of what you really think about them, what you've hidden behind sniggers or whispers or muttered curses or said only to others who would say the same thing back.
And it isn't just going to be the Blacks and the Gays and the Transgender folks and the Latinos and the Muslims and the Women who are going perceive you differently, altogether more clearly. It's going to be people who look like you.
Some of them will be young people. Some of them will be your age. Some will be older.
But the one thing they will all have in common is that, like me, they have always believed that America was a great place. The greatest in the world, not because of our economy, or our military might or even our technology or our movie stars.
We believe American is great because of the principles that our Founding Fathers set down on paper and into law. Principles more powerful and more intrinsically true than even those men themselves knew, except a brave exceptional few of them.
That all humans are created equal, and endowed with certain inalienable rights, to life and to love, to live in peace and safety. To speak freely and not be coerced. To work together for the common good.
That neither the color of someone's skin, nor their faith, nor who they love, nor their ethnic heritage nor whether they fled from other lands to come here with only what they could carry, nor whether others consider them a conquered people, none of those things make any person any less worthy than any other.
We believe that if we can help each other, we should do that. If some of us are not being treated fairly, it harms us all.
We all deserve to be here, or at least, we all start out deserving that. Worthiness can be tarnished and diminished by nursing hatred.
But the true story of this election will be told afterwards. Just as the true story of Barack Obama's Presidency is told both in how much he fought to do for people in spite of corrupt and senseless opposition, and also in the way it showed everyone both how far we have come, and how truly far we have to go before we can say the legacy of slavery and oppression of the few by the many is behind us. It can be overcome with strength of character, not violence, and by hope and with love, but its poison is still a part of our environment and we have a lot of work yet to do before we can claim that our country has been decontaminated of its effect.
The divisiveness of this campaign may have been shocking to many, but for others it has provided a true spotlight, shining on and showing beyond any doubt where the poison of bigotry and misogyny have festered and in whose hearts it has been allowed to thrive.
So thank you for showing us. Please, don't hold back your opinion, make it known.
But remember when this is all over how your candidate lead you to this exposure.
He has lead you into the light with the lie that your thinking is what everyone is thinking. He has lead the party whose nomination he took still further into stupidity, cowardice, entropy and decay.
And while we won't thank him for it, we will take note.
Because we see you. And we hear you. And we will remember.
-
-
-
Thank you to aphra behn for giving me the inspiration for the header image. As I have said before, I only steal from the best. <3