Screaming Into the Void Hurts

Thoughts From a Former Republican

I keep wondering where I’d be emotionally and mentally if I were still a Republican during this election cycle. Last election, I’d basically had it and, admittedly, many of my friends and family, through intelligent discourse and persuasion, have moved me firmly to the left after that initial disillusionment. I felt that no matter how socially progressive a GOP candidate was, the second they ran for POTUS, they had to abandon those beliefs in order to get on the GOP ticket. It sickened me to support a party that was so blatant in its hate for women and the LGBTQIA community, so as soon as I could, I registered Democrat. I figured it was easier to convince bleeding heart liberals to be more conservative fiscally than to convince evangelicals to give women rights over their own bodies and the LGBTQIA community the right to marry whoever they choose to love.

I’ve been fairly fluid with my beliefs, and politics are one arena where I’ve been willing to hear out anyone and everyone as long as they were respectful. I believe this openness has made me a better person and a more intelligent voter. If I felt Democrats no longer supported my beliefs, I would abandon the party. It isn’t about lack of loyalty, it is more about being true to myself and individual candidates, no matter what their political affiliation. I’ve been accused of being a true moderate, but I’d like to think that no matter what my politics, I’d vote with my conscience and with my brain, not with my voter registration card.

Even as open minded as I am and willing to jump party lines, I don’t know how anyone could vote for Donald Trump. I’ve tried to wrap my head around it for months, to see it from the other side, and I cannot sympathize with a Trump supporter and see their point of view. Admitting to myself that Donald Trump could be President of the United States by next January sickens me to my core. For the first time in my life, I legitimately considered the logistics of moving out of the country. I always thought that was useless rhetoric to talk about going to Canada or the UK if an election didn’t have the desired result, and I am not seriously making plans to leave the country, but I also no longer consider it an idle threat made by the weak.

I say this with a heavy heart: I was once a member of the party that just put a fascist on their ticket as a POTUS hopeful, and I’m wondering how the hell that happened. I am genuinely terrified. There are whole swaths of the country in GOP red that actually want Donald Trump as our President. These are the same people (myself included, at one point) who criticized Obama for every perceived misstep of decorum, yet will now vote for a man who openly encourages Russia to hack us, who is completely incoherent during interviews and is a blatant xenophobe, racist and misogynist. Trump has run an incredibly negative campaign, almost to the point of school-yard bully tactics, never mind the fact that he’s a complete failure as a businessman and has no qualifications as a politician.

How can this man be the GOP nominee? How the hell did we even get here?

I’ve asked myself this question since the GOP convention. I watched the entire 60 minutes interview, hoping for a tiny glimmer of expertise or a redeeming quality, and Trump literally had nothing of substance to say. To put it bluntly, the entire interview was a shit-show. Pence just sat there and waited until he was either given permission to speak or couldn’t hold back any more. Trump continuously interrupted him, and the journalist. Actually, I have not seen a single interview where Trump has been coherent or outlined how exactly he’s going to “make America great again,” other than that stupid wall he keeps talking about, which no sane person in their right mind thinks is going to actually happen.

In every interview, Trump just repeats a swirling crap salad of buzzwords that make Sarah Palin’s interview with Katie Couric sound like a Harvard dissertation. He’s going to make us “tough” while everyone else who is against him is “weak.” He uses those words to the point where they have no meaning. Even people in his own party are weak. Anyone who dares criticize him is “stupid” or an “idiot.” He just vomits insults with no facts. Nothing Trump says has any substance, yet people eat it up like candy. They say he will be good for our country, that he is a strong leader, that he’s a good businessman, yet everything about him screams the opposite. All of this falls on deaf ears. Everything gets lost in a buzzing, stinging hive of information and misinformation. Nothing can be proven, even when it’s coming out of Trump’s constantly flapping mouth.

Pence voted to go to Iraq. I heard Donald Trump say, on camera, that it didn’t matter, that he was allowed to make that mistake, but Hillary Clinton was not. Because he said so. I wonder if that’s because she’s a Democrat, or if it is because she’s a woman, or both. He wants to overturn Obamacare, he wants to appoint conservative judges to overturn same-sex marriage. I could go on and on. This isn’t about media spin. Anyone who claims the media is somehow “framing” Trump as a bigot is willfully disregarding their responsibility to their country out of a desire to be emotionally comfortable. As an end result, the Republicans are moving a fascist toward the White House at breakneck speed. Trump supporters are tired of the status quo in a political system that most of them feel powerless to change, and they are scared, and here is someone crass and unintelligent, a symbol of American elitism, telling them that everything will be okay if they just give him power. He’s not an establishment politician, so he must be honest, right?

You know what, I’m scared, too. Donald Trump scares the living hell out of me. I’m worried for friends of mine that are immigrants that might be targeted by his racist, xenophobic immigration policies. Nobody in his campaign can explain what he means by “extreme vetting,” and few of his supporters seem to care. I’m scared, as a woman, that Trump will validate people, like Pence, who want to take away my right to make decisions about my own body. I’m afraid for people I know in the LGBTQIA community who are married, that their lives will be turned upside down and their fundamental rights torn from them. I am scared to death for friends of mine who are ill and finally have insurance under Obamacare (including my own husband,) that they will have their safety net ripped from them and will end up homeless because of medical bills

I want to go back to sleep, to close my eyes and wake up and have this be one big, ridiculous dream. I want to transport myself to the past where Mitt Romney and John McCain were the worst case scenario. In comparison, they would be like a breath of fresh air. Remember an era in politics where we wouldn’t give Howard Dean the nomination because he made a funny sound on stage when he laughed? Now we are in an era where the confirmed GOP nominee can order female news reporters to “be quiet” for simply asking a respectful, challenging question and nobody bats an eye. It’s not possible to go back in time, of course. All I can do is engage those around me in discussion about what exactly a Trump presidency would mean for this country.

Open your eyes and realize that this is not a reality TV show. This is not a game that has a reset button. I was just as skeptical as anyone when Obama got elected, but the past eight years have been a slow recovery that is incredibly fragile. But we are recovering. This next four months is an election for the highest seat of power in our country, and it is very possible that we could be handing that power over to someone who only ran for POTUS for attention and power, who is a man-child hanging by a thread.

If you don’t know that already, I fear that you’re not paying attention or just don’t care. I’ve noticed a very distinct faction of Trump voters that love his lack of filter, because they think he will destroy the need for “political correctness.” That sounds like just another way of saying that he gives legitimacy and validity to hate and bigotry. This is just another facet of Trump’s fascism, and something I don’t feel equipped to discuss because it is almost exclusively emotionally driven by people who have a severe disdain for fellow members of the human race who have the audacity to exist. I don’t know how to break down that barrier myself. That obstacle is one for the ages.

I used to think that Democrats voted with their hearts and Republicans with their brains, but this election cycle has told me quite the opposite. Many Democrats have become frayed at the edges and have ceased trying to have meaningful discourse when the impetus behind devotion for Trump is fed by anxiety, fear and hate. I’d ask anyone in this position of fatigue to press forward in love and tolerance. Those are the only tools we have.