JD Vance's sympathetic approach to Naziism is something you probably find offensive because you, like me, have memories of loved ones who fought and died to prevent the spread of that demented philosohy 80+ years ago.
This morning, I overheard a conversation between two characters in a novel I'm trying to finish. Sometimes characters go off on their own, but I'm allowed to eavesdrop.
The conversation centered on humanity and compassion. The "participants" were mature—40s and 60s, a man and a woman—and the dialogue wasn't political, but then humanity and compassion don't need to be political—they need to be a part of us. We don't simply apply those qualities to situations or treat some people humanely and others like foul invaders of our planet. Either we are humane and compassionate, or we are not. I can't tell you how the conversation turns out—they're still at it.
Humanity and compassion are simple qualities that seem to have escaped our newly elected and appointed overlords and the people who voted for them. Read on, please, even if your red hat is beckoning you or you're wearing it now.
Humanity and compassion. Donald Trump has none. Elon Musk has none. JD Vance has none. Not only that, but each of them seems to revel in the antithesis, and when you ask people why they voted for them, the answer is often, "They tell it like it is." But they don't. They simply tell "it" with inhumanity, cruelty, and callousness. If you voted for them, sorry, but this is you.
You can fool yourself into believing it was food prices or the proliferation of immigrants at our border, but you know better: it was a desire to purify America—to see these "lesser" people suffer, even though your being an American is no more than biological and statistical serendipity. You could have been born in Guatemala or Venezuela or maybe in a famine-wracked African country. You weren't. Lucky you! You could share the luck of being born here, but that would take compassion and humanity. You voted against that.
That was your choice, MAGA people. So wear that hat—just don't confuse your beliefs with those of a Christian or those who authored the Federalist Papers. You kinda gave that up the first time you voted to degrade the life of one of God's children who happens to be gay, or Black, or underprivileged, or poor, or hungry. There's no place for them in Trump's antiquated and vicious world and, by extension, in yours.
I'm not judging—simply commenting on voting trends.
If I'm right, Trump has already embarrassed you, but you overlooked it. And you wish Elon Musk would disappear because you didn't really sign on for a nut case with a chainsaw, but he's not going anywhere. And JD Vance's sympathetic approach to Naziism is something you probably find offensive because you, like me, probably have memories of loved ones who fought and died to prevent the spread of that disease 80+ years ago.
But you have your people in power; don't delude yourself about your majority. You don't have one. We are better than that, and so are you. Two hundred and fifty years ago, James Madison predicted that democracies were not perfect and that majority rule could produce unrepresentative leaders. It's a fluke An anomaly. Pettiness, grievance, and anger are no more American than Putin's greed is Russian. Trump's vision of this country does not involve greatness but relies on an end to humanity and compassion. A great America for Trump operates on his level, where incompetent acolytes uproot the lives of average Americans and the rich have their way.
It will end, but only if we make it end. Then we can grasp the pride we used to have in this country, in living in a democracy, in believing the last 11 words of the National Anthem, and in knowing that acts of charity do not show weakness but make us better stewards of this nation. Then we can wrest the leadership away from the treasonous and return it to the patriotic...the compassionate...and the humane.
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