In a Washington Post column this Tuesday, “If you aren’t filled with rage at Trump, you aren’t paying attention,” Paul Waldman wrote: “Before the pandemic, Trump was one of the worst presidents in our history. But now he has laid waste to our country, with his unique combination of incompetence and malevolence — and he’s not done yet. Once we finally rid ourselves of him, it will take years to recover. But as we do, we should never for a moment forget what he was and what he did to us. And we should never stop being angry about it.”
Yes, I’m enraged. But not at Trump. We’ve known exactly who and what Trump is for quite some time now, and how he is fundamentally broken as a human being. We see him clearly as a racist, rapist, psychopathic, misogynistic, narcissistic, treasonous con artist who isn’t worth wasting emotions on. The only thing that has changed recently is that the consequences of his malevolence and incompetence have now surpassed well over a hundred thousand dead Americans.
What is far more upsetting is that if one disturbed and delusional man with a podium is able to drag America into the darkness, then America, and those Americans who enable him, are lost to humanity and decency. What enrages me are my acquaintances and members of the community who should be showing leadership but instead support his racism, his treason, his corruption, and his incompetence… who use their voices to gaslight, distort, defend and manipulate to bring harm and shame upon America.
What also enrages me are those who are complicit through their silence. I HEAR YOUR SILENCE, and so does everyone else, and we won’t forget it any more than we will never forget those who we have heard use their voices to actively support racism and treason and fascism and the senseless deaths of hundreds of thousands. Yes, when this is over, we know you will claim that you never supported it. But WE WILL NEVER FORGET that through your silence, YOU DID.
In another era, people of such character supported those like Hitler and Mussolini. Those among us who act the same today are not Nazis. But they are acting with the same value system that the Nazis did. And yes, absolutely, they are monsters, just like the Nazis were. And their children, and grandchildren, will someday look back upon them and bear the shame of the monsters who begat them.
This column was originally posted on July 16, 2020 on Facebook using this sharable post:
and on Twitter using this retweetable thread:
THREAD 1/13: Let's talk about… rage.
In a Washington Post column this Tuesday, "If you aren't filled with rage at Trump, you aren't paying attention," Paul Waldman @paulwaldman1 wrote: https://t.co/rjtDxpoheP
— Cliff Kurtzman (@DominoPrinciple) July 16, 2020
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