One basic truth about Trump's America chills me to the bone

I am back to pondering how in the hell we got here, because try as I might, I will never understand how a thoughtful, caring person who truly loves his or her country, could vote for a racist monster and America-attacking convicted felon like Donald Trump, or any politician who supports him.

I can’t get past it, but more than that, I refuse to.

And let’s get this out of the way early: Yes, I understand that the Democratic Party has issues, and a severe image problem right now, but it is preposterous to think that our democracy wouldn’t be on far safer footing if they were in charge.

It’s preposterous to think our environment, women’s rights, human rights, rights to healthcare, JOBS, and clean air and water would be in jeopardy if Democrats were in charge.

It’s preposterous to think that measles would be making a comeback, cancer research would be canceled, and our personal information would be in the hands of some snot-nosed, 28-year-old tech bro if Democrats were in charge.

I was triggered again today by a classic New York Times clickbait piece headlined: “These are the voters who should scare Democrats most”

Subhead: “Working-class Americans who until recently voted Democratic said the party should not count on a backlash to President Trump to win them back. Still, there were pockets of opportunity.”

The Times talked to “30 predominantly working-class voters who supported Mr. Biden in 2020 before defecting or struggling deeply with their choices last year, and many had a stinging message for the Democratic Party.”

These “working class” voters are disillusioned by seemingly everything, which I actually understand during all this chaos, even if I am getting sick and damn tired of this overused term, “working class.” That they think Republicans are doing a single thing for them, except taking more of their money and their rights, is what I don’t understand.

If you want to say, America deserves better from its two major political parties, you have a sympathetic ear. But if you want to say both parties are the same after watching the first seven months of this morally busted GOP regime, then you are intellectually lazy, completely dishonest with yourself, racist, or likely some combination of all three.

Democrats demonstrably stand up for America’s best ideals: Liberty and justice FOR ALL. Republicans demonstrably stand up for the few, and these bloated billionaires, who are currently standing on our throats thanks to the big pay day they just got in that galling big, beautiful bill.

As I was researching this piece with a steady grumble, I came across another NYT story written by Thomas B. Edsall and headlined: How liberalism went to die on the Texas-Arkansas border

Edsall’s deep dive starts this way:

Few communities in America prospered as much as Texarkana during President Joe Biden’s four years in the White House, and few communities were more ungrateful than the voters of that region, which is anchored around twin cities spread across the Texas-Arkansas border.

In 2024, in spite of economic growth under a Democratic president at rates unheard-of in decades, residents of Texarkana turned around and cast a higher percentage of their ballots for Donald Trump than ever before.

Read that one again.

What the hell are we suppose to do with this? What the hell is a politician or a political party supposed to do, if not providing the voters with better opportunities to improve their lives? What the hell is a politician or a political party supposed to do if they are penalized for that?

More from the piece:

During the four years from January 2021 to January 2025 — the years of Biden’s presidency — the unemployment rate in the Texarkana metropolitan area fell to 4.2 percent from 6.8 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The metro region’s gross domestic product had experienced sluggish growth from 2010 ($5.04 billion) through 2020 ($5.8 billion). After Biden took office, however, the region’s G.D.P. shot up, reaching $7.2 billion in 2023, the most recent figure available at the Federal Reserve.

And what did Biden and Democrats get for all this?

In 2020, Texarkana, which is made up of Miller County, Ark., and Bowie County, Texas, voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump — 72.3 percent to 27.7 percent for Biden, a 44.6-point margin. In 2024, despite the growth of green industry and economic improvement during the Biden years, Trump beat Kamala Harris in the Texarkana counties with 75.4 percent of the vote and 24.6 percent for Harris, an immense 50.8-point margin.

They actually LOST votes. It really is mind-blowing …

It’s not the economy, stupid.

We have just passed the eighth anniversary of the repulsive Charlottesville chapter of our country’s bumpy history that is forever chained to its original sin.

Thousands of white men marched on this Virginia city and for white supremacy on August 11-12, 2017, in something called a “Unite the Right” rally replete with their toxic hate and Tiki torches for effect.

On the second day of this ode to hate, James Alex Fields Jr., a self-proclaimed admirer of Adolf Hitler, plowed his car into the crowd which had assembled to peacefully oppose the racist hell that had arrived on their streets.

A young activist and daughter of Charlottesville, Heather Heyer, was killed instantly and scores of others were injured by the speeding vehicle. I have learned many have not fully physically recovered, and still more are suffering from the psychological impact of that day.

Trump, a career racist, who only a year earlier couldn’t garner the endorsement of a single major newspaper during his dirty run for the presidency, but did get a ringing nod from the KKK, could not bring himself to properly condemn the gruesome event. Instead, extolled the virtues of the “very fine people on both sides” of this terrorist attack.

Like his surrender to Vladimir Putin in Helsinki the following year, it will always be impossible to un-hear or un-see these appalling events.

Joe Biden has said it was the revolting incident in Charlottesville that spurred him to run for the presidency three years later, because he, too, knew he could not live with himself or in a country that promoted this kind of detestable hate.

Which brings me full circle in my reckoning with a country predominated by people who are impossible to love or respect. I believe what happened on that tragic day in Charlottesville eight years ago explains better than anything else what the good people who believe in liberty and justice for all in this country are up against.

It certainly explains what is happening in Washington, D.C., right now in yet another quaking moment, because even if you disagree with everything I have typed here today, you damn well better understand this:

Trump didn't invade our capital again because there is some invented crime problem ... Just as he didn't invade it four-plus years ago, because there was some invented election problem ... He did it both times to throw red meat to his racist base who elected him across the country. He did it to appease the people, who live in ungodly places like that Texas-Arkansas border, who hate our cities — but mostly the people of color who live in them.

And I just can’t get past it. But more than that, I refuse to ...

• (D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.)