We’ve all done regrettable things in our lives. Totaling my first car (though to be fair, it wasn’t worth that much to begin with). Marrying my first husband (it turned out he wasn’t worth much either). I regret the midnight snack pancakes I had just 30 minutes ago. Just go to bed, Rebecca. You don’t need… oh, are we putting honey on the snack pancakes? Well, I do love honey… carry on.
But this fascination with Donald Trump for President? Regardless of whether he actually becomes the nominee, regardless of whether he might have a real shot at the Oval Office, we’re eventually going to wake up in the morning, not quite recognize our surroundings, feel quite a bit nauseous, and wonder what we’ve done.
In 2012, Mitt Romney said that 47% of Americans were government-dependent self-described victims who would never vote for him, regardless. The country gasped. It was a pivotal moment in his campaign and one he never recovered from. In 2016, Donald Trump accuses Mexico of sending the US their rapists and drug dealers (and a few, he assumed, who were good people), before proposing a national database of Muslim citizens, before suggesting killing the families of terrorists, before suggesting killing Muslims with bullets dipped in pig’s blood, before half-heartedly and belatedly disavowing David Duke and the KKK.
And while we wouldn’t stand for Mitt insinuating we were lazy… tonight, we handed Donald Trump a decisive Super Tuesday victory.
I don’t know whether Trump’s xenophobic, racist, posturing persona is what he really believes, or if he just believes it could win an election. Frankly, both scenarios are beyond horrifying. Because even if it’s the latter and he’s just a master puppeteer, he’s judged our darkness as a nation pretty well. He’s invited the Orcs out to play, and they’ve come in droves.
Democracy, even our broken, gridlocked representative democracy, is about everyone having a voice and a vote. I surely wouldn’t deny a Trump supporter that right. But I would ask anyone who currently supports this angry campaign to reconsider the consequences. And I’d ask anyone who is appalled by this campaign to speak up. Our voice can be louder, truer, than the hateful rhetoric we’ve seen take root.
Sliding backward into an era of civil injustice and fear, and doing so by our democratic vote, is more than embarrassing. It’s immoral. The damage this election cycle has done to civility, equality and compassion is a black eye on our credibility as a nation. And we’re going to one day wake up sober, and regret it.