F*** Their Feelings

I owe Trump supporters not one thing.

Joseph R. Biden was barely declared the President elect of the United States when the calls on Twitter for empathy and kindness for the other side (i.e. Trump supporters) started.

It was enraging. My immediate response was: They can go first.

Let Trump supporters and the GOP be the first to extend kindness and empathy to people who are not like them. Let “the other side” look at policies that will benefit all Americans and start passing legislation to protect minorities, end frivolous discrimination in the guise of religious liberty, protect poor and vulnerable living humans, and extend equal rights and opportunities to everyone.

We sought NOTHING from Trump or the people who voted for him because we knew they were utterly incapable of these things. We knew and understood EXACTLY who Trump was when he declared his candidacy. And as a person related to several Trump supporters, I knew they were hopeless when Obama got elected. Stop coming at “Biden voters” with this bullshit. Trump supporters specifically, and Republicans in general, can work on their own shit without the likes of me.

I was teased and laughed at for being excited to vote for Hillary Clinton. I was asked if I was voting for her JUST because she was a woman. I had immigration (i.e. illegal immigration) explained to me by people who probably weren’t aware how racist they sounded. I had the Second Amendment explained to me as if I didn’t understand the Constitution. (That was the only amendment Trump voters seemed to care about.)

When Trump made fun of a disabled reporter, his supporters laughed. When he called Mexicans rapists, some of the shrugged and said, “Well some of them ARE.” When the recording of Trump admitting that he assaulted women because he was rich, because he considered himself entitled to women’s bodies, where was the empathy, the horror? “It’s just locker room talk,” we were told.

And when we expressed our fears and anxieties about a Trump administration, when the unthinkable came to be in the wee hours of Nov. 9, 2016, do you know what we were told?

“You lost. Get over it.”

Phrases like “liberal snowflake” and “owning the libs” and “Trump derangement syndrome” were bandied about, and do you know why?

Because those people, the people who voted for Trump, didn’t give one single solitary fuck about our feelings of dread, our anger, or our tears.

They didn’t give a fuck when Trump wanted to pass a ban on Muslims traveling from other countries. When the violence of family separation came to light, when we saw babies caged, you know what we were told? “Obama started it.” (Obama did not throw babies in cages.) When Charlottesville protests occurred and a Trump supporter killed a woman with his car, we were told there were very fine people on both sides. They were not appalled when Trump declared the press “enemy of the people.” When peaceful protests spread across the country in the wake of the George Floyd killing — yet another unarmed black man killed by police — they sent unmarked vans to cities to arrest people, and said a 17-year-old who crossed state lines and killed two people was just being young and stupid.

Don’t even get me started on SCOTUS and judges. DON’T EVEN. If you are blind to the hypocrisy of Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination and elevation to the highest court of the land two months before Election Day, you live in a zone of denial I cannot countenance. Hard fucking pass.

Guess what, Trump voters: He lost. Get over it. I’m so sorry that a Biden and Harris administration is going to work to provide healthcare, jobs, and debt relief to you and your families. That sure does sound tough. It’s a real bummer that climate change will be addressed so that our children and our children’s children will have a habitable planet. And, of course, it’s going to suck getting the coronavirus pandemic under control so that we can return to a way of life that was abruptly taken from us in March of 2020. Too bad more than 200,000 didn’t live to see how awful that’s going to be.

Don’t you dare tell me to show kindness and empathy to people who are sad or scared that Trump lost. Sure, Biden and Harris will have to extend olive branches; that’s how our government is supposed to work. But when Mitch “let’s make sure Obama is a one-term President” McConnell slaps that olive branch right out of their hands, I hope they shrug and go about setting the world to right anyway.

I can’t wait to have competent, empathetic, intelligent people leading federal departments, people who believe in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, science, and the American practice of democracy. People who will improve the economy, education, the environment; bureaucrats who will honor the rule of law for everyone and bring decency back to every level of government.

If you don’t like it, too fucking bad. I have no tears for you.