My A-Ha! Moment and My Hope for More

Hey, trumpistanians, I’ve had my “A-Ha!” moment.  When will you have yours?

Let’s start with a vocab lesson.  Someone asked me the other day why I referred to members of trump’s cult as “trumpistanians”.  The word derives from the many authoritarian regimes that spread across western to central Asia.  The suffix “stan” means “land of” in Persian, so Afghanistan is “Land of the Afghans”. Kazahstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan…you get the idea. Not particularly creative, but the point is made.  “trumpistan” is the vision that trump and his puppet masters have for our country: An authoritarian regime made in trump’s fucked up image.  A “trumpistantian” then is one who is willingly and enthusiastically driving our country to authoritarianism.  

It has been nine years since donald j. trump arrived on the American political scene with a purpose, and it just might be the most disastrous nine years since 1861-1877 (which I know is more than nine years, but if you’re going to talk about the Civil War as being a disaster, you have to include Reconstruction, but I don’t have time for a history discussion here.  Just take my word for it, trump has been and will continue to be an unmitigated disaster for our country.)

Throughout these nine years I have written often about how mind-boggling it is that people support him.  I have spent far too many words questioning the intelligence of his supporters.  I have written about the ultimate villains in this disaster, the 2016 Republican presidential primary candidates, who couldn’t see past their f’ing paunches to realize that if all but one of them didn’t drop out of the race and get behind a single candidate, the unthinkable, unspeakable would happen.  

But even after those idiots allowed him in the race, there were countless times when I thought it would be over.  I thought this was it:

But no, that only fired up his “base” more to prove him correct.

Then I thought this would surely be it.

And there was this ditty that surely would drive people of color and Jews away from his camp:

But, no…in 2024, African-Americans and Jews voted for trump in larger numbers than in the previous two elections.  Mind-numbing.  Mind-boggling. 

So maybe the women would save us after this one?

When you consider that even the hint of having an affair drove many politicians out of previous races, and proof of an actual affair almost kicked Bill Clinton out of office, surely this horrendous disregard for women would do it.  But no, it just became a running joke for his base. “See, my guy can do ANYTHNG.”

And women in 2024 supported trump in huge numbers.

So in a country that has made miraculous strides in teaching itself to respect the less fortunate among us in the last 15 years or so, then THIS next one had to end trump’s relevance, right?

But no, we really haven’t come that far in teaching ourselves to respect the less fortunate among us.

Ok then, THIS will do it right?

Guilty on 34 felonies.  Problem solved, right?  But no, this just made trump a victim of the deep state (whatever the hell that is) and thus more sympathetic to his base.

At this point, I am long past trying to understand why trumpistanians have chosen this path for our once promising country which has yet to fulfill the dreams laid out in the Declaration of Independence…but until the last few years at least we were working on it.  No more.  The road to trumpistan is littered with what’s left of the rights of those not born male, white, and wealthy…just like our country was BEFORE Jefferson’s immortal words were put to paper.

It was this process of trying to understand trumpistanians that led to my A-Ha! moment.  

Over 77 MILLION people voted for trump in 2024.  Not 77 people which seems more reasonable.  77 MILLION.  At that point I suddenly realized that trumpistanians are not, if fact, the people who are out of touch.  This is actually the man they want.  His racism, incompetence, misogyny, history of rape, felonies, cruelty, lies, (and did I mention incompetence?) is exactly what they want America to be.  It is me and those who believe in the most important facet of the American Dream…that all people are created equal and deserve to enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness..who are completely out of touch. We understand this is a process.  “Pursuit” is a process, and we had allegedly been pursuing this dream since Jefferson put those words to paper. The Civil War, the Progressive Era, the Civil Rights Era, the 1960’s…all were huge strides in eliminating the worst demons of our history which is fraught with demons.  But Ronald Reagan killed all of that and created a country in which a whole lot of people came to believe that we really don’t have to treat all men equally…that we don’t have to open the American Dream to everyone…that women are just fine servicing men…that life is just easier if we don’t have to fight for the very ideals that could make American great.  Reagan opened the door and trump slid in and delivered.

I suppose there will be books written on WHY trumpistanians have moved in this direction.  Clearly, many of the very people who will suffer the most under trump’s policies are his strongest supporters. But I won’t be writing one of those books, because I haven’t a clue how the ideals I have advocated for my entire life were not really American ideals in the first place apparently.  77 MILLION people want a country I cannot stand to live in.

But live in it I will, and I hope to survive long enough to see trumpistanians have their long overdue “A-Ha!” moment.  

At some point they will realize all the things trump has promised are either disastrous for our country or just another long list of trump lies.  So, please, trumpistanians, keep reading (or failing that) watching the news and watch as trump backs away from the things you thought you wanted.  And when you have your “A-Ha!” moment, please don’t waste time apologizing the country for your treacherous voting habits.  Just get to work on making sure it never happens again.

I’ll start you off with one…who saw this coming?

On December 8, 2024 trump said “Deporting immigrants is a very hard thing to do.”  

Duh.