Back in 2016, I was -- for better or worse -- vehemently Never Trump. I didn't trust him, and didn't believe he would govern as any sort of conservative. He'd been a Democrat most of his life, a fixture in both New York and Hollywood. How could he possibly be anything but a liberal Republican (at best)?
I also didn't think he had a snowball's chance in hell of beating Hillary Clinton, and that's what made me really mad. Hillary Clinton is an awful woman, and would have been an awful president. I dreaded the thought of her in the Oval Office, and the policies she'd put forth.
If she won, it was because of Trump's hubris in running, and it would be Trump's fault.
Then Trump won. I remember election night 2016 because I was sick with a wicked cold, gorked out of my mind on NyQuil, and listening to a podcast as the election results came in. When the panel realized Trump was going to win Pennsylvania and Wisconsin -- and with it, the presidency -- the dawning realization was something I'll never forget.
He actually won.
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It will never, ever not be funny to me that Hillary Clinton was denied her shot at the White House by Donald Trump. Having gotten away with so much corruption over the years -- and only a thing in politics because she married Bill -- watching her lose to Trump was so incredibly satisfying. I will go to my grave laughing about it.
Elections are important, and elections have consequences. But I've never been one to subscribe to the alarmism that this is the last election of our lifetimes if a certain candidate wins. I remember when Bush won reelection in 2004; I worked on a college campus at the time and the mood in the office the day after was...somber. And that's an understatement. It was like someone beloved had died, and we were all in mourning. I found it bizarre, and off-putting.
I have certainly recognized that things would be bad depending on who won an election (take a look at what happened when Wisconsin gave the liberals the majority on the state supreme court, for example) -- and I said as much when Biden ran and won -- but there's always the midterms and the next election cycle. The sky is not falling.
And for me, Never Trump as I was, the sky did not fall in November 2016. Trump won, and we'd deal with it.
By and large, his presidency was not bad. I detest his handling of COVID, both as a medical professional and as the daughter of someone who died in April 2020. My father was a veteran who served during Vietnam. He didn't get to have a funeral because of COVID (while George Floyd got several). And that is squarely on Trump and his advisors who told the states to lock us down, socially distance us, and mask up.
But with Trump -- from the time he became a public figure decades ago up to today -- what you see is what you get. He may be brash and boorish; he may post mean things on Truth Social and say whatever's on his mind, consequences be damned.
So when President Biden posted this on X, it caught my attention:
We’re approaching the first presidential election since the January 6 insurrection.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) June 20, 2024
We know who Donald Trump is.
The question we have to answer is: Who are we? That’s what’s at stake.
He's correct.
We know who Donald Trump is.
Part of why Biden won is due to his being an unknown in terms of executive leadership. Yes, he'd been in the Senate longer than I'd been alive, but he had no significant leadership roles. Campaigning with COVID -- no major events, pre-recorded or strictly televised events with small crowds -- worked to Biden's advantage (even though it was clear four years ago he was not all there cognitively, and that's only gotten increasingly worse).
Burned out from COVID and the constant media barrage telling us he was just this side of Hitler, Americans decided to give Biden a chance. He was good ol' grandpa Joe, after all, how awful could it be.
Well, now we know, Mr. President.
And by my calculus, you are far, far worse than Donald Trump was or ever could be.
Let's start with the weaponization of the DOJ and FBI. They have plenty of time to label parents and traditional Catholics domestic terrorists (and lie about it), harass whistleblowers exposing illegal 'gender-affirming care' in Texas when they're not trying to lock them up in prison for a decade, they're eager to throw pro-life grandmas behind bars, too, while turning a blind eye to criminals who firebomb pro-life pregnancy centers and the Antifa-BLM rioters.
That happened on your watch, Mr. President.
Your administration botched the withdrawal of Americans from Afghanistan, leaving tens of millions of dollars of equipment in the hands of terrorists. Which is nothing compared to the hundreds of Americans left behind at the mercy of the Taliban and the thirteen service members who died at Abby Gate. You didn't bother inviting their families to the White House, but you did arrest Gold Star dad Steven Nikoui after he disrupted the State of the Union address in January. HIs son Kareem died at Abby Gate; do you remember that? Probably not; you were too busy looking at your watch when Kareem's body was returned to American soil.
We have wars in Ukraine and Israel -- where you are playing both sides and betraying our ally in an attempt to not lose votes in Dearborn -- wars you spend billions of dollars on. Money we don't have. Things are getting touching in the far east, and China might make a move on Taiwan on your watch.
Remember when you ran and said you'd restore our respect in the world? Good times.
Your administration gaslights us on the economy, and inflation, telling us everything is great and we're just too stupid to realize it.
You brag about sentencing January 6th defendants to 840 collective years in prison (something an appeals court said was improper) while defunding the police and ignoring actual crime.
You say no one is above the law, but unilaterally -- and in defiance of the Supreme Court -- forgive student loans for wealthy Democratic Party staffers who live in homes worth half a million dollars. You also ignore very clear federal law concerning immigration; our border is wide open and people are dying at the hands of illegal immigrants who shouldn't be in the country in the first place. And you can't even get the names of the victims right, callen Laken Riley 'Lincoln' (if you acknowledge them at all). But you release statements on Nex Benedict and lie about the circumstances of her passing, and praise George Floyd.
You stoke division (racial and otherwise) and hatred -- in Philadelphia, and at Morehouse College, and by injecting race into every issue you can.
You're clearly unwell cognitively, and every American with eyes and a functioning brain can see this. Yet your administration tells us to ignore what our eyes and ears tell us, calling the videos of you looking lost, confused, and needing guidance 'cheap fakes' to protect you.
Is this restoring norms and decency? Is this healing the soul of the nation? Those are all the things you ran on.
You obliterated women's sports, private spaces, and athletic opportunities by gutting Title IX to appease the trans activists, and the only time you can define the word 'woman' is when you -- a supposed 'devout Catholic' -- are championing abortion and pandering for our votes.
Shall I continue?
Biden isn't running on his record, and he's not running on Trump's record. He's running on January 6th. That's a bold strategy, Cotton. Trump is not facing a single charge anywhere related to January 6. But that's what Biden is going with.
At least under Trump we could afford gas and groceries, and we didn't have a corrupt administration attempting to gaslight us on how things are going. And at the polls in November, we will show you who we are: we are a people fed up with your divisive, expensive administration.
So yes, Mr. President. We know Donald Trump.
We also now know you. And it's not something I'd brag about.
