Whether talking about grabbing women ‘by the p_____’, or putting kids in cages; whether quoting TWO Corinthians, or suggesting that the injection of bleach into the body might fight COVID; whether claiming windmills cause cancer, or that Haitian immigrants were eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Il; whether stating that Belgium is a ‘beautiful city’, or wanting to make Canada the 51st state: Donald Trump has proven over and over again that he is far from a ‘stable genius’! For most of his life, and certainly for the past 10 years, the only felon ever to be elected President of the United States has lived a life that mocks the way of Jesus and that denies any sense of character and/or integrity. No president in American history has said or done more things that should have ended a person’s political career than Donald Trump; and yet, he remains one of the most powerful men in the world. He is not just beloved by his followers, but believed by many to be God’s chosen and anointed one!
Pew Research and CNN have both reported that almost 90% of the people who voted for Trump in 2016 also voted for him in 2024. Gallop and variety of other news agencies have consistently reported that over the past decade Trump’s support has remained at about 1/3 of the American population. And Pew Research has also reported that white evangelicals continue to be Trump’s largest base, with 72% approving of his job performance as Commander and Chief. Surprisingly, these statistics have remained relatively static over the years, in spite of the fact that Trump has: filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy on six different occasions, cheated on at least two different wives, been found guilty of sexually assaulting columnist E. Jean Carroll, tried to flush classified documents down a toilet in Mara-Lago, pardoned over 1,500 people found guilty by courts across the country of rioting at the capitol, and on and on! All of these ills and evils have been like water on a duck’s back; and support for ‘the Donald’ remains strong. Never the less, the Never-Trumpers of the world continue to try convince family, friends, and neighbors, that Donald Trump is a fraud!
To that end, attention today has now shifted to the “Epstein files”, in the hopes that perhaps, finally, if Trump’s name can be found on some kind of ‘client list,’ his support might begin to wane.
But are the pictures not enough? Are photographs and videos of Donald Trump, sitting and talking with Jeffrey Epstein, surrounded by young women and girls, not enough for us to know that there was more than a friendship with Epstein, and that Trump likely engaged in child sexual abuse? Do we really need any more evidence? It’s not like such behavior would be foreign to this man who history has proven to be a liar, misogynist, and pervert.
Donald Trump has shown, and continues to show us who he really is. He has not changed since he sat in a TV board room and arrogantly shouted “you’re fired” to one who he believed had not measured up to his standards of what ‘good’ business people are supposed to be like. Never the less, far too many people still seem to believe that if we can just continue to point out his flaws, his sins, his reprehensible behavior, his glaring ignorance on so many fronts – some people continue to believe that if we can continue to shine a light on the heart and soul of this morally bankrupt narcissist – that the tide will turn and change will come.
Well America, it’s time to stop! It’s time to stop allowing Donald Trump to take up so much of our head-space! He is not going change, and neither is his base. And we are wasting our time thinking that we can do anything about that. Because they just don’t care! They don’t care about his ignorance. They don’t care about his immorality. They don’t care about the crimes he’s committed. They don’t care about his ruining our nation’s reputation around the world. And they certainly don’t care about Jeffrey Epstein. The only thing they care about is furthering their radical, racist, homophobic, patriarchal agenda. So the time has come for us to stop focusing on Donald Trump, and instead focus on his followers. They are the people who should most concern us today.
Hopefully, in ten years, Donald Trump will be history! But sadly, Trumpers will still be with us. So what are we going to do with them? How are we going to deal with them? Do we shame them? Do we try to maginalize them? Do we try to push them into the closet in the hopes that they might go back into the night from which they came?
The answer to those last three questions is ‘perhaps!’ I’m not beyond shaming, nor am I unwilling to refuse to listen to or have conversations with those for whom reason and rationality have become forms of elitism and political correctness that need to be avoided. I’m also not unwilling to boycott businesses that publicly defend Trump’s actions, or even reduce the amount of time and energy I spend with and on people who part of the Trump cult. But none of that is enough. We must also do everything we can to take away their power.
Now obviously that won’t be easy. When people believe that there is an existential threat to their way of life, they are not going to be easily silenced. And they certainly are not going to give up power without a fight – even using violence, as we saw on January 6th. But we cannot be deterred. And if that means having difficult family conversations, or calling out the hypocrisy of siblings in Christ; if that means walking away from friends with whom we discover we have significant . . . not just differences of opinion, but a difference of morals; if that means challenging neighbors or strangers who make comments that attempt to normalize the evils of this administration, then so be it! All of us need to be regularly pushing back, in every and any way possible.
Donald Trump’s followers just don’t care about the type of human being that he is. But we do. So let’s stop trying to expose the hypocrisy of HIS life, and instead begin to expose the hypocrisy of theirs!
Bob's Blog 