It gives me no joy to write today’s blog post. I write it out of a deep concern and love for the United States of America.

I am not in my comfort zone with my blog anymore. That ship sailed a couple of weeks ago. But until I no longer have freedom of speech, I will speak out when I feel compelled to do so.

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When, in the name of everything holy and moral are the courts, US Congress, and the almost 80 million Americans who voted for this chaos and destruction going to grow a spine and a brain?

Some of you are just gullible, some of you only get your news from one source, some of you are told every Sunday that the liberal bogey man is out to get you, but many of you just couldn’t bring yourselves to vote for a woman, or a person of color, much less a woman of color.

You just couldn’t do it.

You said you didn’t like her laugh.

You said she wasn’t qualified.

You even belittled her because she had never given birth to a child. Helping to raise her two stepchildren didn’t count.

Her opponent intentionally mispronounced her name. (A sign of a “stable genius,” which is what he calls himself.)

Her opponent called her a “s**t vice president.”

Her opponent called her “a stupid person,” “the worst,” and “slow,” with a “low IQ.”

He said, “She’s lazy as hell, and she’s got that reputation, and she’s a radical left lunatic, she’s further left than Bernie Sanders or Pocahontas.”

You thought every bit of that was funny. You think it is manly to belittle women’s intelligence. You think it is funny when he calls US Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts “Pocahontas” because you think it is cute to make derogatory remarks about indigenous peoples.

Despite Kamala Harris’ education, government experience, and ability to speak in complete sentences, you preferred the man running against her.

You preferred a man convicted of sexual assault and 74 felonies.

You preferred a man who tried to overthrow an election that he lost.

You preferred a man who openly used vulgarity when talking about women.

You preferred a man who has cheated on every wife he has ever had… and there have been three, so far.

You preferred a man who paid hush money to a porn star.

You preferred a man who said there were “good people” on both sides in the confrontation between Neo-Nazis and non-violent protestors in Charlottesville, Virginia.

You preferred a man who does not speak in complete sentences.

You preferred a man who lies with abandon.

You preferred a man who childishly calls people names and mocks disabled people.

You preferred a man who said he was going to be a dictator on Day One.

You preferred a man who scoffed at an American who spent seven years in a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp and said he preferred soldiers who don’t get captured.

You not only voted for that man. You still defend him. You make excuses for all his wrongdoings. You laugh at the misery he has caused not only the poorest of the poor around the world but also your fellow Americans.

You laugh and sneer when people dare to voice an opinion in opposition to Trump.

You don’t care that some men who have nothing to do with gangs got swept up by ICE agents and shipped off to a horrible prison in El Salvador. After all, it wasn’t you or your father or brother who got sent there by mistake.

You defended Trump last Sunday when he said he loved the idea of sending US-born prisoners to prisons in other countries.

You hit that laughing emoji every time someone posts their concerns on social media.

You think it’s hilarious when another thousand federal employees or another female military officer gets fired.

You probably go to church every Sunday.

You might even wear a cross around your neck.

Even after he pardoned the rioters who trashed the US Capitol and assaulted police officers in an effort to stage a coup, you still supported him.

That is the face of the Republican Party. And if you defend that by saying it must be all right because y’all won the Presidential Election in 2024, my answer to you would be, “That is nothing to be proud of. That only tells me that the Republican Party has lost its way. This might surprise you, but I used to be a registered Republican, so I’m not saying this as a dyed-in-the-wool lifelong left-wing lunatic.”

But I believe the root problem in the United States today is not a Republican-Democrat problem. I think it is a world view problem. When half the population of America is so hate-filled that they cheer for a government of cruelty, we have a problem bigger than politics.

Some Trump supporters are not Christians. I am directing these questions to those who are Christians: Have you forgotten all the teachings of Jesus Christ? You know… all that stuff about loving your neighbor as yourself… when you do this to the least of these, you do it unto me? What about all that stuff about feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, and welcoming the stranger? You often quote the Old Testament. Maybe you need to spend more time reading the New Testament.

Don’t you see what Trump and his minions are doing to our democracy, to our country?

Do you not see what is happening with the tariffs? They were put in place by one person. To try to win that person’s favor, every country in the world except Russia and Belarus must now come crawling to Donald Trump and beg for forgiveness for treating America unfairly and then promise to support Trump and do whatever he demands. He bragged in a speech to his fellow Republicans on Tuesday night that these countries were kissing his a%&^. (He has such a large vocabulary and such decorum! You can put him in a tuxedo, but you can’t take the vulgarity out of his mouth.)

The vulgarity remark aside, that’s how these tariffs are going to go. Countries don’t have to negotiate with the United States Congress. They only have to negotiate with bow down to Donald Trump and, apparently, kiss his a%&^. They must pledge loyalty and allegiance to him, just as you have. Don’t you see? Do you still believe those other countries are going to pay the tariffs?

That’s not how tariffs work. If you don’t understand that, you need to read some history before all our history is erased and your only source of information is what Trump and Fox News want you to know.

It will very soon be too late for you to wake up.

That joint report that US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem are required by one of the first Executive Orders Trump issued on January 20, 2025, to give him on the situation at our border with Mexico by April 20 is fast approaching.

Surely, you know about that Executive Order. Surely, that TV network you get all your news from told you about it.

In that report, Hegseth and Noem are required to recommend to Trump whether or not he should invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807. Not familiar with it?

Outlined in a number of statutes under Title 10 of the United States Code, the President of the United States is given the authority to declare martial law and the power to use military force against US citizens. Maybe he won’t do it, but it is a real possibility.

Is that what you thought you were voting for when he said he would “Make America Great Again” and only be a dictator for one day?

You said he was kidding. You were partly right. He was kidding about the “one day” part. What kind of a person running for the office of President of the United States cracks jokes about being a dictator? Only one who wants to be one. Besides, he has no sense of humor.

It is no accident that we are being distracted by tariffs, firings, and Elon Musk and various Cabinet Secretaries playing games with US history on websites. We aren’t supposed to be on the alert to find out what Hegseth and Noem’s report says.

Tell me I need to find another country to live in if I don’t support Donald Trump. Yes, a Trump supporter said that to me recently.

Another Trump supporter, whom I’ve known for 65 years, told me that all the mayhem that Donald Trump is pouring down on us every day “is a beautiful thing to watch.”

Go ahead and call me a bleeding-heart liberal or a leftist lunatic or woke, or a radical or that new word: “panican.” Those names you call me to hurt or belittle me? I wear them with honor because I believe God calls on me to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the sick, welcome the stranger, and love my neighbor as I love myself.

And who is my neighbor?

You are my neighbor. Whether you are a Christian or not (or know it or not) you are a child of God and I am a child of God. He loves me just as much as He loves you. He loves you just as much as He loves me, and He wants me to love you, too. That’s what I strive to do every day, no matter how hard you make it for me to do that.

If some of the things I have listed today don’t apply to you personally, perhaps you should find some new people to hang out with because looking at you as a group from the outside, things appear to be very ugly and hateful.

If you don’t agree with everything on the list, you might want to stop wearing that MAGA hat.

That hat says you are quite all right with US Department of Agriculture food not going to the food banks.

That hat says you are quite all right with all those medical researchers at the CDC and the NIH being fired.

That hat says you are quite all right with anyone the Trump Administration doesn’t like the looks of or the accent of to be shipped off to a prison in El Salvador without being charged with anything and without a trial.

That hat says you are quite all right with ICE agents to drive around in unmarked vehicles, masked faces, and no identification to kidnap people on the street and haul them off to a detention center. (How do we know they are ICE agents? They might be gang members since they show no ID. Have you considered that?)

Maybe you don’t literally wear that hat. Maybe you just discuss politics among friends and agree with them when they praise the things Trump is doing. Or maybe you are the one who starts that conversation, and you assume everyone around you agrees with you. That seems to be a common thread among Trump supporters.

Maybe you don’t approve of the things Trump is doing, but you don’t voice that. You don’t tell your friends some of the things they are saying in support of Trump make you uncomfortable because you don’t want to jeopardize your friendship.

The time may come – and it may come sooner than you ever thought possible – when you won’t have the right to disagree with Trump. The time may come when your friend is asked to report you if you don’t toe the Party line or if you dare to criticize Donald Trump.

If you could go back to Nazi Germany and ask a regular citizen if they thought such a thing was possible in their country, I imagine they would say, “No! Never. Never here!” That’s what I would have said a few years ago about America.

If you are a Christian and I have stepped on your toes in this blog post, instead of hurling insults at me as your leader would do, I hope you will pause and ask yourself if you really think Jesus Christ approves of all the things President Trump has done.

Do you really think if given a choice between voting for Donald Trump or anyone else, Jesus Christ would have voted for Donald Trump?

How can a Christian continue to support Donald Trump? Maybe I’m wrong to ask that question, but it is something I’ve struggled with every day for the last nine years and especially for the last six months. No one has given me a satisfying answer. I’m asking in all honesty. If you have an answer, I welcome your response and a conversation. If we can’t have a conversation on this topic, all hope is lost for the future of our country.

Janet