VeritaMusings

 Dear Trump supporters, You're right, I am biased. I have news for you: you are too. Everyone has biases, as bias is an inevitable component of human cognition. The difference between you and me, though, is that I can be convinced and you can't. It can be tough for me to combat my bias and admit I'm wrong, but given enough evidence, I can -- indeed, I have changed my mind plenty of times in my life. You, on the other hand, won't accept any evidence at all, or any court decisions, or any media -- including conservative media, or anything at all that is in any way opposed to your Dear Leader, your ideology, and your goal of an autocratic takeover. Trump could personally stab your family to death in front of your face and you would still support him. You would say the culprit was a Democrat in disguise. If DNA evidence proved it was Trump, you would insist that it's fake news and a clear left wing conspiracy. If multiple eye witnesses -- even conservatives -- testified...

I see some Trump supporters maintain that they don't like the person, but they like his policies. This doesn't appear to be a large portion of the electorate, because his personal favorability rating has long been pretty close to his job approval rating. Nevertheless, they exist. While this separation of judgements between the personal and political does make me feel better, because at least they're not justifying the man's behavior, I can't help but note that I would never support someone like Trump. I have in the past voted for (but not volunteered for or donated to) candidates that I didn't like personally, but these were not blatant autocrats who were, as Trump is, openly trying to destroy their opposition, the democratic institutions, and the republic itself. I voted for Bill Clinton in 1996, despite a number of problems I had with him personally, but none of his many faults rose to the level of autocratic ambition.  There are so many example of this behavi...

I used to think that Trump supporters were wrong. Only in the past year have I come to the realization that they're not wrong, they're lying. They're gaslighting, just as their leader does, and for the same reason: they want the dictatorship as well. They've been fighting for this from day 1 of the campaign, and it isn't stopping now.  Before I delve further into this, I should make clear that, in my rational brain, I know that it is in fact a small minority of Trump voters who would actually want a dictatorship. Most had various reasons, I'm sure, to vote for him, but wouldn't support a literal autocratic takeover as it was happening. Having said that, I'm angry right now, and I'm going to refer to "Trump supporters" even though I really mean that small contingent of the staunchest die-hards. Having gotten that out of the way, Trump supporters are fighting for a dictatorship. They don't believe these ridiculous allegations of mass vote...

My thoughts and prayers are with Donald Trump in these difficult times. It is truly heartbreaking that he is yet another victim of his president's dreadful response to the pandemic. We should all pray for him. Lord, hear my prayer: May Trump be treated with the very compassion with which he himself has long treated others. May he receive the same quality of health care to which he himself believes all Americans should be entitled. May he experience all the empathy he himself has long felt for the people of our nation. Amen! Am I doing "good person" right? I feel like I'm nailing this.

I guess my main problems with Trump are that he has clear autocratic ambitions and authoritarian tactics; has absolutely no respect for our democratic-republican institutions such as the constitutional separation of powers; is openly trying to be a dictator; is vastly corrupt; breaks laws and then breaks laws to hinder investigations into the other broken laws; botched the federal response to the pandemic, which has resulted in tens or hundreds of thousands more deaths and more suffering than we would've experienced with compassionate and competent leadership; committed treason by allowing the Russians to put bounties on our soldiers’ heads without any push-back at all; is at war with the free press; is openly trying to steal the 2020 presidential election; is constantly combative about every single fucking thing, often lambasting both Democrats as well as Republicans for any petty reason his infantile mind can latch on to; never admits any wrongdoing, despite being the most corrup...