Bob Schwartz

While waiting for words to post, I spent a little time listening to the mountains and clouds conversing. Others may have better things to say. I don’t.

Trump has been hateful for his entire time in public life. His latest tirades, getting louder and uglier daily, are nothing new. But for all of this time, most of us have tried to excuse those who support Trump.

We looked across tables, in our social groups and pews, among our neighbors and colleagues, and said that people are mostly free to pursue their ideologies and support whoever they choose. Mostly, because there are obviously people whose odious beliefs reflect back on their supporters. A bridge too far.

Trump has been an exception. Trump can say hateful and horrible things and yet we believe that his supporters are otherwise decent people. They are our family, they are our friends, they are our public officials.

Is it time to stop excusing Trump supporters for Trump’s hatefulness, no matter who they are?

My answer will disappoint in its irresolution: I don’t know. What I do believe is that the increasing level of poison coming from one of the most visible people in the world—not just America but the world—is toxic. Maybe if his supporters acknowledged it, beyond “oh, that’s just Trump being Trump”, maybe we can start to get that poison out of our system.

Sunset Color

I do not know the name of this sunset color.
It does not have a name.
If it had a name and I knew it I would not tell you.
I would tell you that sometime when
The day became night
Was becoming night
A color appeared in the sky
Then faded to black.

© 2024 by Bob Schwartz

“They’re [Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio] eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.” That is disgraced former president Donald Trump, at a presidential debate watched by 70 million people, repeating a right-wing meme. The news outlets felt compelled to fact-check this. Needless to say, it is not based in fact.

What does need repeating, that still isn’t mentioned often enough, is that this is pure racism. The meme-makers know it, the repeaters, like Trump and Vance, know it.

So how is it like the blood libel, in which Jews were historically (and in some insane corners of the hate world still) accused of using the blood of Christian babies in rituals? To answer that, imagine that it was Jews in Springfield, Ohio who were the target of the haters. My guess is that we wouldn’t have fact-checking. My guess is that the nation would be so outraged that there would be calls for Trump to step down as candidate, and there would be Republicans who would support that.

But instead, these are just Haitian immigrants. What do they expect when they are different and, to some Americans, unwelcome strangers? But lest we forget, we Jews were that too.

“Haters gonna, hate, hate, hate” sang recent Harris endorser Taylor Swift. But when the hater is running for president, we should not shake it off.

What’s worse than a con man? An aging and unstable one with nuclear weapons.

When Trump first emerged in the 2016 primaries, Republicans he ran against exclaimed he was a con man unfit to be president. Once they lost to him, and he won the election, Republicans embraced the fact that while he was a con man, they could use him to get what they wanted. He may have been a con man, but he was their con man

The Trump on last night’s debate stage was still a con man, but aging and dangerously past prime. He showed himself to be mentally and emotionally unstable, unfit again to be president of the United States, the most powerful person in the world.

Republicans noticed. They are praying that enough voters didn’t.