Cats and Dogs

 

"It's time to pull Trump's mask off so that people can see what we are dealing with here. He is a con artist. First of all, he runs on this idea that he is fighting for the little guy, but he has spent his entire career sticking it to the little guy." - Marco Rubio, 2024 Trump surrogate, in 2016. 

“I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical genius—a really good sociopath—and that he’s America’s Hitler." "Trump’s actual policy proposals, such as they are, range from immoral to absurd.” - J.D. Vance, 2024 Republican Vice Presidential candidate. 

As I write this, Fox News is cutting away from a Trump press conference in LA that happens to be a promo for one of his golf courses. They had to cut away and sanewash his performance because he's talking about toilets and David Muir's hair. As one does. 

Look, I think we can agree no one's changing their minds here. If you're a Trump person, and you made it past those first two quotes, I salute your willingness to hate-read your way through this. 

But speaking of those quotes, it's fair to acknowledge that people evolve, change their views, or embrace political solutions they previously dismissed. Barack Obama notably shifted his views on gay marriage well after Dick Cheney did, for instance. Rubio & Vance, however, aren't simply shifting views on tariffs or the small business tax credit. They're tying themselves to an irredeemable creature to salvage their political existence. And they're not alone. 

I am not here to tell you Kamala Harris is a great or even good candidate. I came away from her first debate unsure as to what she's actually running on. She failed to lay out her vision for the next four years and didn't fully answer the moderators' questions. She was aided by ABC moderators who didn't fact-check her on a number of claims. What she did do was expose a nerve few others have touched: Donald Trump's narcissism. He feebly word-shat his way through rally-size and stumbled into several unforced errors. He peddled a Facebook rumor about immigrants eating cats & dogs.

When people cite "Trump Derangement Syndrome" they're gaslighting - but it's not the rest of us they're gaslighting, it's themselves. No matter how often he reveals just how awful he is, no matter how much he shows his lack of grasp on policy or even reality, they continue to carry his water. The usual playbook starts with "so you're just mad about mean tweets" and ends with "I'm triggering you, aren't I." They act as if they're in a game, or having an argument about who should win the National League MVP, not engaging in dialogue over who should control the nuclear arsenal. 

You could brush off the behavioral concerns, his association with white nationalists, the crimes he's known to have committed (and those we don't even know about), or his affinity for strongmen like Viktor Orban of Hungary. You could do that if you truly love (and understand) his policy proposals. You could do that if you're an ultra-partisan tribalist. I can't. This isn't Cowboys-Giants. It's not the Olympic 400-meter relay.

I'm not sure what happened in 2015. It was a paradigm shift to a post-truth era. Politicians lie. Joe Biden lies, Kamala Harris lies. JD Vance lies. Your mom lies. But Donald Trump creates alternate realities in which the lies have sex and make baby lies. He said he "made $35 insulin happen." He didn't, Biden did. He's disavowed Project 2025 (google that nightmare) despite its author asserting Trump played a significant role in its construction. His "no tax on tips" proposal would provide no cut to people making $28,000, but it would allow hedge fund managers and lawyers to convert their "fees" to "tips." He's proposing IVF insurance mandates and Republicans have no idea how they could possibly enact it, even though they killed a bill by Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth that would do precisely that. 

When asked how he'd make childcare more affordable, he said (verbatim): "Well, I would do that and we're sitting down, you know, I was, somebody, we had Marco Rubio and my daughter, Ivanka…but I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I'm talking about that because the child care is, child care couldn't, you know, there's something you have to have it in this country, you have to have it... I want to stay with child care… so we'll take care of it." Imagine Joe Biden said this. 

You could say he speaks off the cuff so we should expect some slips, but despite countless opportunities he can't tell you what he will clearly do other than raising tariffs thereby exacerbating inflation or instituting the "bloody" deportation of immigrants. 

JD Vance, who is more polished on policy and in general, was asked what the first regulatory action of the Trump administration would be. "Drill baby drill." The United States is currently producing more crude oil than any country on Earth. Ever. The US now produces 50% more oil than Saudi Arabia. The moratorium on fracking was lifted two years ago. People will cite gas prices from 2020 when there was little demand for fuel. I don't know how this can be a top priority. 

According to Penn Wharton's budget model Trump's budget proposals, if you believe them, would add $5.8 trillion to the federal deficit over the next decade. Harris' would add $1.8 trillion. I don't even know why I cited this because, really, who cares. Nothing matters. People will believe what they need to believe.

I voted for George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney. I haven't conveniently evolved much. My views remain similar to those I held a decade ago. Maybe I'm wrong and Trump supporters have it right. It's possible. I simply won't ally myself with a candidate who pushes populist nationalism; a candidate who is a malignant narcissist that sees the levers of government as tools to punish & inflict pain. If I wanted to "fit in" I could throw on a red hat and mount a 14 foot flag depicting Kamala Harris as a dog on a pick-up, but it's not really my cup of tea. 

Donald Trump flew Laura Loomer to the 9/11 ceremonies in New York and the same day she shared racist posts about Indian people on top of 9/11 conspiracies. She's a white nationalist. Donald Trump shared a rumor on the international stage about Haitians, and working Haitian parents had to keep their children home from school to protect them from threats of violence. One video of the "Haitian crisis" features a Haitian man leaving for work and waving to his white neighbor who proceeds to call him a "sand monkey." That's not even the right slur. Trump has threatened to jail public servants. He continues to deny his election loss, because to acknowledge a loss would admit flaws. In 2020 there was more Republican voter fraud than Democratic, and those instances were statistically insignificant. Trump will deny the results in November should he lose and probably encourage another bloody revolt in Washington. He used a dead soldier's grave as a photo op and his campaign harassed an Arlington cemetery worker just two weeks ago. His surrogates have explicitly said a nationwide abortion ban must be instituted not to preserve life but because "if you're going to party, you got to pay the consequences." 

Trump supporters are not my enemy. Fellow Americans don't have to be "enemies." I do consider Donald Trump to be my enemy. Someone who is as depraved, immoral, and deceptive as this man should be nowhere near the power of the presidency. I don't "hate" him, but I do see him as an existential threat. And I'm not the one exploding into furious spasms of manufactured, masturbatory, competitive outrage when I have Trump-adjacent arguments. I'm simply telling you what I've been telling people for years, well before his reputation was repaired by The Apprentice. 

I'll vote for the opposing candidate against a person like this every cycle. See you in November.