After the Assault on the Capitol: An Open Letter to My Trump-Supporting Friends

To my Trump-supporting friends:

If, after what happened in Washington yesterday, you still support Donald Trump, you should be ashamed of yourselves.

I, along with many other Americans who oppose Trump, including respectable conservatives like George F. Will and Jennifer Rubin, tried telling you that there were better, smarter Republicans than Donald Trump out there. You ignored us. You called us “libtards,” “Communists,” “Demonrats,” and other ridiculous, insulting names.

For me, a guy who started voting in 1984 as a young and naive pro-Reagan independent, it was never a matter of Republican vs. Democrat when it came to Donald J. Trump and his ability to be President. It was a matter of moral character, intelligence, and leadership skills. And Trump failed in all of these areas.

Never in the history of the United States has a President successfully created what amounts to be a cult of personality….until Trump was elected. And never before had a sitting President sowed seeds of distrust in our political system by claiming – even before an election – that there would be massive voter fraud and insisting that voters go to the polls in person during a global pandemic. That is, until Trump came along.

And never before has one Presidential transition process been disrupted by violence in our nation’s Capitol, until Trump supporters breached the “People’s House” to interrupt a joint session of Congress and stop the certification of the election results.

As a result of this assault, four American citizens are now dead, and the world is goggle-eyed in shock (and in some places, like Moscow, delight) at our present state of Trump-inspired divisiveness and distrust.

This was not a case of “false actors” impersonating Trump supporters. Antifa was not behind this. BLM was not behind this. It was Trump supporters, egged on by Trump, his sons, and Rudy Giuiliani, who acted violently yesterday. Not the “violent left,” like many of you love to post on your timelines, but the violent right.

This was not a peaceful protest gone wrong. It was armed insurrection. It was a riot.

Even worse, this was an attempt to reverse a presidential election.

And the consequences have already started to manifest themselves.

Already, Lindsey Graham broke ranks with your President.

Vice President Mike Pence refused to overturn the election, per Trump’s request. (He has no Constitutional authority to do so anyway.)

Already, senior White House staffers, including the First Lady’s chief of staff, the deputy National Security Adviser, and the deputy White House press secretary, have resigned. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao is reportedly going to resign, as well.

I have always found it sad that some of my Cuban-American friends are champions of liberty and freedom when it comes to what President Kennedy once called “that imprisoned island.” They hate dictatorships of the far left, and rightly so. But they are fine with right-wing authoritarianism, which is what Trumpism is really all about.

So if after yesterday’s attempt to reverse a free and certified election you STILL say “Trump 2020” and think he was a great President, you should be ashamed of yourselves