- You wouldn’t let your daughter date him.
- You wouldn’t take him to visit your mother.
- You wouldn’t take him to meet your pastor.
- You wouldn’t want to marry him.
- You wouldn’t want him to be a leader in your Boy Scout troop.
- You wouldn’t want to work in his office or on one of his construction projects.
- You wouldn’t want to be his accountant or business manager.
- You wouldn’t want him to be a member of your fraternity.
- You wouldn’t want to play golf with him.
- You wouldn’t buy a used car from him.
- You wouldn’t have wanted to be his D.C. chauffeur on January 6, 2021.
- You wouldn’t consider putting money in a bank he owned.
- You wouldn’t want him to be your landlord.
- You wouldn’t select him to be the executor of your will.
- You wouldn’t want to be the judge in one of his trials.
- You are reluctant to vote for a convicted felon.
- You wouldn’t wish to stand by as he carries out the Heritage Society’s Project 2025 plans to undermine our Constitution.
Sorry about the shift of tone in those last items, but sometimes even bad attempts at humor need to be tempered by a return to reality. Now is one of those times.
When Trump says something outrageous, such as wanting to be dictator “only on day one” or referring to immigrants as “vermin,” many of his supporters either ignore it and refuse to talk about it or, if pressed, write it off as “Trump just being Trump.”
The implication is that Trump is just a performance artist, as he was on “The Apprentice” TV show when he bellowed “You’re fired” at some unlucky soul. We are asked to write off Trump’s violent statements as mere theater for his fans.
But we (and I include his supporters) should know by now that Trump is more than a performance artist, and that he was not the “successful businessman” he was portrayed to be in 2016.
Although Trump was not convicted of crimes until recently, his career has been marked by criminal behavior for which he was rarely held accountable. Here are some of the items that are part of the public record:
- He overvalued his assets, according to court records, and was ordered to pay $364 million;
- The Department of Justice found he refused to rent apartments to Black applicants in New York. This was settled out of court;
- He was ordered to pay $83 million to a woman a court said he raped;
- He was found by a court to have defrauded students at “Trump University” and ordered to pay $25 million in restitution;
- He violated lobbying laws in New York state, was fined $250,000, and paid the fine.
It is not unclear whether or not Trump has paid all of the money the courts required him to pay over the years. We do know that he illegally “cooked” his books in order to avoid paying taxes owed on his properties and to reimburse Michael Cohen’s payments to Stormy Daniels.
North Carolina pastor and author John Pavlovitz addressed Trump supporters who ignore his misdeeds:
“Nearly everyone still supporting Donald Trump knows he is a reprehensible human being and guilty of high crimes against this nation – but they simply cannot admit to themselves or anyone else they made a mistake and so are doubling down again and again. They’re not stupid, they are just willing to let America die on the altar of their pride, which may be worse.”
These are certainly strong words, but our presidential election is only several months away. We need all Americans who are not diehard Trump supporters to recognize and reject this person who the MAGA Republican Party wants us to send to the oval office. You can do this only by voting for Kamala Harris.
If Trump wins, not only will we and our allies in Europe and beyond be in great danger, but America will likely see a change in our form of government which it may be impossible to reverse.
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