Your friends or family cut you off for voting for Trump — this is what you need to know

I don’t know who will win the election, but with the election on the horizon, only hours away, many of you might be upset and confused as to how you have lost family, friends, or co-workers because of your support for Trump, and if you can ever repair that relationship.

I have spent the last several days talking with people who have blocked people like you for supporting Trump, and gathered their stories. I’ve read and reviewed these stories, looking for trends and answers for you.

This is not going to be a list of politics or things they hate about Trump. Instead, I have worked hard to focus on behaviors you have demonstrated, or that you are being associated with by supporting Trump.

You may not believe you have exhibited any of these behaviors, but if someone has cut you off and you want to understand and discuss why, look closely at this list and think about how you have presented yourself to them.

I’ve broken up the behaviors as categories from the stories and conversations shared with me, and followed that up with some interpretation of the behavior. What you’ll find below is how that behavior is likely being perceived by those that have blocked you, cut you off, or ghosted on you.

I refer to the parties as; “Trump supporters,” not you personally, and “their” or “they” as those who are perceiving the behavior.

I will do my best to not make this personally offensive.

-Excuses –

Trump supporters make excuses for everything Trump says and does, and then they expect others to accept the excuse. This is often associated with hypocrisy, so I put them together. Where Trump can make, say, and do things then the Trump supporter will passionately defend it to the point of violence, or suggestion of violence.

This also includes making excuses about voting for Trump; excuses for major moral, policy, or civil issues, as well as smaller, more social issues, or cherry-picked policy points.

Their perspective -

When Trump rambles (and there are no end of examples of his nonsensical, incoherent ignorance): it’s acceptable, open to interpretation, and Trump supporters expect their family and friends to simply, “let it go.”

But if another candidate stutters or says something off; it is literal, definitive, and they should be held accountable and punished.

Even more importantly, seeing people excusing moral issues through politics is increasingly upsetting. A friend posted something which I think conveys this better than I can:

“…almost every major issue we are facing today. Racial equity and justice, pushing back against white nationalist terrorism, an acceptance of basic science and reality, taking actions to save lives during a pandemic, not putting children in cages for fleeing cartels, preserving the rule of law, ensuring bodily autonomy and marriage equality for all…these are not political statements, they are statements of basic humanity. If you have issues with any of the things listed above…you and I don’t disagree politically…we disagree ethically and morally.”

-Whataboutism-

“The technique or practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counter accusation or raising a different issue.” This is also known as: to quo que or ‘you too’ as a formal logical fallacy. It attempts to discredit an opponent’s position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument.

This is a little long because it’s important, and it plays into most other issues; it’s real, and it’s a threat to our nation. You might not be familiar with it, and if you take away anything from this post, I want it to be that you have at least heard of this concept and maybe opened your eyes a little to this practice.

There are lots of examples of Whataboutism: Someone says “Black lives are disproportionately killed by officers every year,” and someone else responds “But police kill white people too,” that’s Whataboutism. Other, more complex examples could be “You should be more upset about children missing than people dying of Covid,” or, if someone says, “Trump sexually assaulted someone” and the response is “Bill Clinton sexually assaulted someone, too.”

It’s a known propaganda tool, and the tactic was perfected by the KGB in the 60’s and 70s. For years, whenever there was negative news about communist countries, Russia would flood the news in capitalist countries with “but what about…” If Russia was called out for some kind of massacre, articles about slavery and America’s own history would “suddenly” appear in OP-ED pieces. More recently, when you have heard about Russian and Chinese bots, this is what those bots are doing; If news comes out that one of our enemies doesn’t want us to unite over, these accounts will light up with “what about my”, or, “what about this.”

(Seriously, if you have time look this up and read as much as you can about it)

Whataboutism being used to manipulate our social media is the biggest threat to our Nation’s Unity because it is very easy for someone who might be concerned about an item in the news and not be sure what to think,and to see “someone” post that on that subject with “What about”, and connect that logic, and now the real news story is lost.

Their perspective -

You might be doing this a lot. They post something like a news article, or study and a Trump supporter replies with “what about.”

Examples given to me are “Blue lives matter” “All lives matter” “what about our veterans” (when discussing kneeling at sporting events), “Her emails”, “Hunter”, “Saveourchildren” etc. After you understand what it is, you might start thinking of others.

Whataboutism is the cornerstone to the ‘meddling with our democracy’ that our Intelligence keeps warning about. I don’t think the media is clear enough about what the bots and meddling practice is because they are worried American’s won’t comprehend it.

A lot of Americans are waking up to how whataboutism works. If this is your first time, part of your communication issues with your family might be they are aware of this behavior and haven’t been able to communicate to you that you are participating in it.

A start resource is the article on wikipedia. Yes, I am aware it’s a source anyone can change some articles, but the topic is pretty static and the Wiki article has reliable sources you can review. It’s a good launching point to begin learning more about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

- Denial –

In the context to what has been sent to me, ‘denial’ refers to “fake news”, or, “left news”, etc. In order to avoid reading, or taking the time to review, something they have provided to a Trump supporter. Writing off everything they don’t want to hear as fake, or left, without checking what it says, or if it is even news. For example, it has gone from; Trump supporters aren’t even accepting actual court documents, source reports, and more recently even news from Fox News, opting to only get their “news” from opinion shows like Tucker Carlson (which, Fox clearly states, is not news). Even “fact checking” sites are now all considered “left”.

Their perspective-

It can be acceptable to be weary of news sources, especially when you don’t understand how news works and how news is held accountable. But news relies on sources and, now more than ever, most news links every source in their article. But going beyond that in several stories family members sent the actual report, medical journal entries, or court documents, and they were written off as “liberal bias.” If you are writing off court documents and medical journal published studies as liberal, as if they are news and media and only willing to listen to one news source,then they feel like you are a lost cause. There is a difference between what a reporter reports and the actual source they are reporting on.

As for fact checking sites; they cite every source, and only provide a scale based on what data was presented. When you see a fact checking site, you can go to it, and click the actual sources, to review what they reviewed to come to their conclusion. Unlike reporters, fact checkers have several people working on checking the news and post an incredible amount of detail on how they concluded their rating, and almost all encourage people to provide any new source that might alter their rating.

When someone cares enough to go through the hassle of researching a source for you to give you further information and insight into the topic, and a person obviously ignores the source because they disagree with the topic, it comes off as disrespectful to them and their efforts. This is especially frustrating with family who are replying because they love, care, and have respect for the Trump supporter.

- Racism –

Trump supporters are associated with large waves of very open racist groups. Racism is the number one talking point right now for many in thinking about this election. That’s because there are people selling white supremacy flags, people calling out white power, and large white supremacy groups marching, holding rallies, and potentially reported lynching’s. Asian communities have been ringing the alarm about being attacked because Trump’s claim that China and, therefore, all Asians in America are involved in an elaborate plot to destroy the United States.

Their perspective-

Even if you don’t consider yourself, or Trump, a racist; in their eyes: you are tolerating racism and that makes you a racist by proxy. By supporting Trump, you have signed off that you are ok with the modern civil rights movement being labeled as terrorism. Anyone who went to highschool, or has even seen a movie about the civil rights movement, can tell you that when those protests and marches were going on, they too were also labeled terrorist groups. The news constantly called them riots and reported on looting. The FBI literally had a terrorist file on Dr. Martin Luther King and other black leaders. It is very similar, and that’s frightening for anyone of color or who has family of color.

Painting Civil Rights movement protests as rioters and looters, plays into the stereotype that people of color are nothing more than thugs and thieves that can’t even protest civilly. This has been the standard procedure by police and the government to deal with these movements since the civil war. A good example of this is how police respond to protests: When a protest matches an ideal that white America and police agree with, they will come to manage a protest in plain clothes and arrest people that get out of line: When police come to a protest around Black Lives Matter, or police brutality, they show up in riot gear, armed with tear gas and batons.

They believe this because in 1971 Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI burgled an FBI field office in Media, Pennsylvania, took several dossiers, and exposed the program by passing this material to news agencies. This document the exact action we see today with the current police brutality and accountability protests we see today involving the BLM movement. . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO

Your family and friends have been seeing this, and they see how Trump supporters encourage this, and buy into the narrative that civil rights protests are about riots and looting and white protests are about free speech.

There have been protests for police accountability, for over 150 days at the time of writing, and the only time they are on the news is when they are being used for political theater. To show that people who support black America are nothing but rioters and looters, burning cities to the ground. During the rest of the time, Trump supporters aren’t even aware the protests continue.

I will address a little about Their perspective on Trump’s racism, whether you believe it or not:

Trump first got famous because he and his father were sued by the DOJ for refusing to rent to blacks. There are countless run-ins with his companies over their treatment of black employees. Including stories of hiding black employees from Trump when he arrived because he didn’t like seeing them in his businesses, even if he “had to hire them” Those accusations are not new and have followed him for years.

They also note he paid money to take out ads in NY to seek the death penalty for the Central Park 5. Even after they were exonerated through DNA and a confession by the actual killer, he still maintains they are guilty.

He was the biggest advocate of the birther movement. If you look at pictures of the current white house staff there is only one person of color. To this day, Obama’s Presidential portrait has not been hung in the white house next to every other American president in history.

Adding to that, is the recent presidential decree to remove racial bias training from the government. Combine all that with his attacks against Kaepernick, the 4 senators of color he told to go back to their country, all the other racist comments, and his failure to clearly to denounce white supremacist organizations, live, and in front of the entire world.

They also see him continuing to blame ‘CHYNA’ for a virus that happened to make the leap to humans. While he continues our nation falls deeper and deeper into pandemic chaos, he is effectively signaling to Trump supporters that they can blame Asians for all of the issues we are experiencing as a nation due to our failures in managing the Covid pandemic.

In their eyes, you, being ok with Trump not coming down hard on these racist groups and openly denouncing them, clearly and definitively, his continued rhetoric on how the virus, all our issues is China’s fault, making excuses for his actions towards people of color, means that you; have cosigned on racism. Putting all these groups, peoples, and their families in danger.

- Nationalism –

“Identification with one’s own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations.”

“What is wrong with being proud of your own nation you might ask? Isn’t that patriotic?”

Well, ‘patriotism’ means devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world, but has no wish to force upon other people. On the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. It means exceptionalism, that there is some divine greatness to your government and your people that means you are better than all other people of all other nations. With that, comes the belief that if your government, your nation, is not living up to that greatness it must be someone’s fault. That is when you, as people, can be manipulated by fear. Fear of those that are to blame for your lack of the greatness you believe your nation deserves.

Some examples in history are Russia with communism and Germany with Fascism. In the case of Russia, as the amount of poor expanded under Royal control and the rich got richer on the backs of the workers, a picture of greed was painted about those who were born into wealth.

In Germany, it was wealthy Jews. Then, socialism; because, they associated socialism with Jews. They painted a picture that all socialist and Jews were evil, holding back patriotic Germans from regaining their greatness. Germany was once the “greatest nation on earth”, but now middle-class Germans were below poverty. While the Jews were actually not faring any better, they still became the target since they weren’t “real German’s”, even if their families were just as poor, just as destroyed, and had lived in Germany for generations. Common propaganda was that Jews had cabals that kidnapped children and killed them for their blood. Also that socialists, the main opposing party of the Nazi’s around this time, were funded by the Jews and were going to continue to keep Germans from their greatness, kidnap, rape, murder, and drink the blood of innocent blue eye blond hair children.

We literally learned this in school.

- Fascism –

Party before People, Thin Blue Line flag, and Antifa.

Trump supporters are seen as being Anti-Antifa, pro-police and putting their party before their fellow Americans, friends, co-workers and family.

How are these things related? Antifa stands for antifascist, and it was first recognized in the 1930’s with the rise of Fascist powers in Germany and Italy. To understand antifa you need a basic understanding of what Fascism is. “Fascism prioritizes the nation over the individual, who exists only to serve the nation.”

It is so important to understand that quote because nations that do this, have been the enemy of the United States since WWI. It is this kind of government that we justify invading other nations, including Iraq. When citizens idolize their government over their people, and accept rule by their government through its police, then a nation becomes fascist and traditionally an enemy state to the United States.

I am going to give some basics. It’s power by one party, which represents the government, the police, the military led by a leader that only represents that party. Failure to be a member of the party, either removes a citizen’s rights and in most cases can revoke citizenship completely.

Because Fascism works through creating fear, propaganda, and manipulating free-speech; it is always a threat to all liberal democracies. Which the term “liberal”, in this uses, means; a nation with “free speech” and where the government is “for the people by the people’’, and not an authoritarian class by a single party, tribe or family. The United States has been the shinning beacon of Antifa and the greatness of a liberal democratic republic since the Nuremberg trials after WWII when we demonstrated to the entire world how liberal our justice system was by holding televised trials for Nazi’s, rather than just executing them all. It started out controversial, with many saying we were siding with Fascism but by the end the United States become “Great” in the eyes of the world and many nations moved to copy our liberal justice system and adopted “Free Speech”, separate Judicial systems, democratically elected presidents, and republic representations.

Their perspective-

First let’s start by addressing Nationalism and its direct association with Fascism. When they see you all wearing Trump gear, going to rallies where Trump only addresses your party, and you have parades of flags with Trump flags mixed with Nazi Flags, Confederate flags, White supremacy flags, it signals everything that historically comes with Fascism. A leader who only addresses HIS people. All other people can’t be trusted, or are evil, or are pedophiles, or enemies of the state. Those around you have seen Trump supporters spiral down this path. Trump himself refers to everyone that is not a Trump supporter with some kind of name. This practice, again, is another historical hallmark of Fascism.

The other thing they see is that “thin blue line flag” which has had its meaning move from being a shared flag between officers, to being the anti-BLM flag, to now seeming becoming the flag of the right-wing pro-police Trump Republican party. As said before we had protections in the constitution to prevent this, because the writers knew how important symbolism is to unify a nation. They knew that altering the US flag in any way to represent one group could lead to people adopting that flag and using it to cause a divide in the nation of those with power under that flag and the rest. They knew this because literally in history that is what ALWAYS happens when a flag is altered so only one group is represented by it. Making plates with the US flag is not the same as changing the colors and then rallying around a new flag.

Combine this with the history of how Fascism in Germany started with police and radical police support by young fascist gangs that were loyal to the Nazi party, allowed to break laws because of their loyalty to the party, and were later merged with police the create the SS. I think you can see how many people see similarities between that flag, the police, the right-wing gangs, and the Trump supporter waving that same flag.

They see this and it scares them to see a flag that represents only one party, the party of the police, the members of these self-proclaimed fascist groups all being merged and paraded around on trucks beside previous enemies of the United States flags.

If you don’t know this history, you might want to watch a video on the philosophy tube on the philosophy of ANTIFA. It was made a few years ago, so it’s not in response to the election. Its made by a well-respected student of philosophy, not ANTIFA, and it focuses on the philosophy and history of Antifa and fascism citing all of its sources in the comments for you to learn more. https://youtu.be/bgwS_FMZ3nQ

There is also the article from the United States Holocaust Museum on the rise of Fascism https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/fascism-1 which you might want to read if you want to understand why They are concerned by your action or association.

- Conspiracy –

Conspiracy theories have been around forever. In many ways they are like fairy tales, stories about real events, people or places to ward off common people from interacting with places, people or events. Whether it is a story about a haunted wood, or a woman being a witch, or about long nosed business people (Jews) killing and eating children, these modern conspiracies are part of a deep rooted subconscious part of humanity. Conspiracies almost always are around a threat. Whether it’s witches, haunts, Jews, alien’s or the government, the end game for any conspiracy is that there is something that people are hiding that is dangerous to you and your family.

Almost all intelligence agencies use conspiracy to manipulate people. The Romans really perfected the basics, to the point that there are still conspiracies to this day that can trace their origins to them. The Germans who for years had fairy tales about evil Jews — Grimm’s fairy tales are watered down, but most of the stories, the villain is a Jew — which was weaponized by the Nazi’s and many of the fairy tales became conspiracies. German propaganda worked, because Germans had been told for generations in their fairy tales to not just Jews because they were evil, ate children and exploited all real Germans.

It’s important to understand how Conspiracies work. They play on existing fears and stereotypes. If you have been told your entire life as a loyal Republican, in a family that has been loyal Republicans since the days of Lincoln, that, “Democrats are evil, want to have the government takeover all your rights, take your guns, take your children, and tax you so you can’t afford a livable life-style.”; how hard is it to also believe that their “Obsession” with taking children is connected to a secret cabal of high ranking Democrats to be in a blood cult that drinks the blood of Children, and are funded by an old Jew, George Soros?

Their perspective-

Trump supporters are obsessed with this idea that the Democrats are performing witchcraft and magic. They are sacrificing common sense to buy into a conspiracy that was used in the past that Jews are funding Socialists to kidnap real American children and drink their blood. To them this is maddening on a few levels. First it has the markings of the exact same propaganda they learned about in school with the Germans, Russians and Italians. Second it’s being led by an anonymous source or sources. Third it reads like a cult with its tenants stating things like “keep an open mind” and also “don’t trust the media only trust us” This is a known brainwashing tactic used by cults that thrive on conspiracy.

Adoption, even partly, into the idea that, “you can’t trust any media” but you are “keeping an open mind”, and that you either ‘believe’, or ‘accept’ the conspiracy that, “an old rich Jewish man is funding Democrats who are kidnapping and drinking the blood of children,” scares them. Just as it would scare anyone who is on the outside of any cult.

Trump and is office not outright denouncing these conspiracies, and even in some cases demonstrating acceptance or reposting theses conspiracies, further solidifies a party willing to allow the same propaganda and fear that gave rise to Nazi’s, fascism in Italy and even the Marxism that led to the killing of thousands in Russia after WWII.

In their eyes, even though it hasn’t truly lead to that level of Authoritarianism those parties, all began slowly, and like a frog in a boiling pot, those who would have never participated in such acts would later find themselves accepting such acts as the normal, and later, finding themselves confused and regretful that they played a role in the rise of such a state. They fear this is you.

- Refusal to discourse –

Trump supporters have a reputation for commenting on posts or making pro-Trump posts that controversial and set in many of the concept we have discussed in this article.

When offered conflicting information, or new information they will write the information off as “liberal”, “fake-news” or run the following response that is so common now that it’s a meme representing the frustration others have in with Trump supporters:

“He didn’t say that, and if he did, he didn’t mean that, and if he did, you didn’t understand it, and if you did, it’s not a big deal, and if it is, others have said worse”

The other response to things unrelated to Trump, such as Covid, Gun Regulation, the Economy, policies, police, Antifa, BLM, and countless other stories is to simply, post YouTube video from unidentified sources, or articles that are from Right-wing sources that only pro-right opinions or propaganda and are often from unidentified writers and site owners. Then, it’s followed by some story about a “friend” who is an expert, and finally, attacks the person as a liberal and finally starts barking about how Trump will win the election and MAGA2020. Sometimes with some thinly vailed threat of violence either by the Trump supporter or by some part of a pro-Trump group after the election.

Their perspective -

You have, or you are associated with, a party that fails to look at the sources of information it provides because the content suits their argument; meanwhile your family is providing you sources from respected accountable sources that can be held accountable if they lie. Let alone in order to avoid being accused of posting arguments from “left-wing” media they will post from actual court documents, congressional reports, or scientific studies. Many even avoid using Journals that publish studies, some with hundreds of years of publication as trusted sources, just to avoid it being called part of a “liberal narrative.” Even court documents, GOP congressional reports, and studies are being written off as “liberal media” by Trump supporters.

They see all this effort to provide information from real sources out of respect and love for you, their family, friend or co-worker, just being ignored, shunned. All for a narrative so important to the Trump supporter that they are willing to sacrifice their relationship over believing the narrative that suits their needs. This, followed by the mocking “MAGA2020” to end the conversation in their face with no effort to discuss is damning to them. You don’t care about them, their efforts, their respect, their love, you only care about being loyal to Trump and these narratives that allow you to excuse your support and his behavior..

- Callousness -

There have been 230,000 American deaths at the time of writing this from Covid. But something not reported as much is that there are millions of Americans with long term symptoms from Covid that might have their lives going forwards altered forever. Some won’t be able to return to work ever again, and others might have to change careers entirely to something new because of the effects of long term symptoms.

Trump and Trump supporters seem to just accept all these American deaths.

Their perspective -

• 231,045 Dead from a pandemic and Trump supporter won’t allow them to mourn or in many cases acknowledge they have died.
• Millions suffering from Covid post-illness who will have their lives alter. Most of them may never be able to return to their jobs dur to the chronic effects of Covid.
• In the last eight months, due to Covid, 8 million Americans left the middle class and fell below the poverty line

Some write them off, while more extreme supporters claim their deaths and the long term sickness is all made up, fake news, a conspiracy. Writing off their fellow Americans’ entire existence. Some even go to the social media pages of the dead and post they think the account is for a fake person, or to social media pages of people that are sick with Covid and accuse them of faking their illness to damage Trump’s reputation and hurt his re-election. Covid Survivor and support groups have to stay private to avoid having their members attacked or doxxed by Trump supporters who attack their members.

Trump, the White House and his family have over and over downplayed the virus, these people’s illness, and deaths. Many of the supporters follow this, continuing to repeat this information that effectively mocks the dead and sick Americans as well as their mourning families, and friends.

But the callousness doesn’t stop with covid.

Police have no issue attacking BLM and anti-police brutality civil rights protestors exercising their Constitutional protected right to protest. Trump supporters have driven into protests on purpose in hopes to maim or kill civil rights protestors. There have been several mass shootings by Trump supporters. The DHS, a national police force that for years American Republicans denounced because in the United States we believed a federal police force would result in an overreaching Federal government and was a stepping stone to Fascism, performed black bag kidnappings of protesters in Portland. Also in Washington DC people were tear gassed and beaten to make way for the president to do a Photo OP at a Church a short distance away. During this area sweep by crowd control officers an Australian news crew was specifically targeted. Footage appeared on live air of them being beaten.

Trump supporters have driven cars into protests and then Trump supporters celebrate it. They post about how there should be more violence to stop civil rights protesters. Instead of denouncing violence, Trump supporters demand more violence and have become increasingly supportive of police not being held accountable. Some even suggest that police be allowed to be judge, jury and executioners. The idea that police should be allowed to shoot and kill Americans under any justification given by an officer, even if there was no crime committed in the first place by the victim.

Trump supporters didn’t just make excuses for the black bag operations or the beating of protestors but encourage the gangs of right wing militias an Pro-Trump groups to counter march in full militarized and armed setups in counter-protest to unarmed civil rights protestors. Worse they see support by the police of these groups, who are wave massive Blue lives flags, Nazi flags, Confederate Flags, and Trump Flags. They see Trump supporters encouraging the violence against all non-Trump supports, who are now all identified as their enemy, often making posts fantasizing about participating in violence against their fellow Americans because they don’t support Trump.

-Fear -

Trump, his office and his supporters spend a lot of time deciding and discussing who to fear, distrust and how people should trust them. Fear the Black Lives Matter protesters because they are violent rioters and looters, fear ANTIFA because they are burning down democratic cities, fear Socialism because it will take all your freedoms and liberties, fear Democrats because they are backing the burning of their cities and kidnapping children. It even gets more abstract, fear people on busses or on private planes coming to your town to burn it all down and destroy your lives. Fear Mexicans, Indians and refugees from civil war coming to steal from our governments benefit programs and steal your jobs. Fear poor people being allowed to move into your neighborhood because they will rob you and destroy your property. Fear Asians because the Chinese made a virus. The list goes on and on.

Their perspective-

They see you as this as xenophobic, racists and not without merrit. This kind of fear mongering is familiar to them because they listened in history and have seen movies about nations that were mislead by fear. As discussed in the fascism's and nationalism categories, the idea that you are meant to be great and these outside forces are holding you back and trying to destroy you is a common tactic by parties and leaders looking to gain full authority over a people. Manipulators tell you that you were better and great before, and that the only reason you are not great now is all these evils that are robbing you of greatness and only they can give you back that greatness.

Voting out of fear, putting people in charge out of fear, always leads to bad and not to greatness. There is a reason almost every history book tells this story about every nation or civilization that has put people into power over fear, it’s because that is what has happened every time. They see you buying into all this fear, for the promise of something great that can’t be delivered on since most of it is not real.

The Nazi’s were made up of a Disenfranchised middle class that had lost everything to the allied powers after WWI. Instead of blaming themselves or the leaders for proudly marching into the war they lost, they saw themselves as victims. In their minds they were the greatest, most advanced people on the face of the earth, but their pride and patriotism were being undermined by war refugees. The nations that defeated them made them sign treaties that crushed their economy, on top of that the Jews and Socialists were profiting off of their misery. When a German came along and promised to return German Empire to its former glory… “the greatest in history. Germans bought into the promise of being made great again.

But the truth was, most of the things they blamed their issues on were not real, and their fear led to the murdering millions of innocent people and having their nation, their pride, the empire destroyed by far worse than it had been.

You might not like being told Nazi history, because you know it. But those who don’t support Trump can’t escape this comparison right now. The rise of Antifa, the fear of Antifa, the constant speeches of all the things you should fear the Democrats will take away if the president loses, the constant talks about Democrats being socialists. The conspiracies about eating children and socialist Democrats being financed by a rich Jewish man.

-Distrust -

The list of all the things that Trump supporters distrust is long as well and seems to be ever evolving. Don’t trust the mainstream media. Don’t trust scientists. Don’t trust non-Trump supporters. This has even evolved to, don’t trust fired advisors of the president, don’t trust medical journals, don’t trust Universities, don’t trust mail-in voting, don’t trust the US intelligence community, don’t trust the FBI, and again the list does seem to grow longer each day.

Their perspective -

Fear and seeding distrust seems to be a revolving door based solely on the loyalty to the President. The message always seems to be if it is not in line with what the president wants then it is something to distrust or fear. To many non-Trumpers feel that this is obvious manipulation through fear propaganda. Where the narrative becomes to only trust the president.

An example is Fox news. There is a constant narrative that Fox is the only news Americans can trust. But whenever the actual Fox news does a story out of line with the president there is backlash and statements about you can’t trust Fox anymore. This is usually followed up with a bunch of appearances by the president on the many Opinion shows on Fox where they warm up to him and let him air his complaints about Fox news and suddenly Fox news is the good news again that can be trusted. This is one cycle of behavior that is obvious but it exists with other more important roles in America. For example, the FBI and the intelligence community.

Historically seeding distrust in the media of a nation and sowing the idea that you can only trust pro-party media is very unnerving. Again there are strong overtones of Fascism here. Fascists often start with attacking the media. It usually forces the media to be more honest and to work harder to cite stronger sources.

We have already seen that, most major news outlets have really altered how they present stories, such as NPR and the NYT. Their stories are filled with sources that are not other media outlets. Not to mention reliable sources like Reuters and the AP have constantly demonstrated to be objective.

It’s hard to grasp, but news outlets report the news that is presented to them. If they report news you don’t like or later is debunked, that is not a sign that the whole of Media can’t be trusted, it means that news can’t be trusted and other reporters or agencies did their diligence to report on it.

Meanwhile we have seen the rise of fact checkers, people that literally just look up every piece of information they can find on the internet to rate the honesty of a story and post everyone of their sources for people to evaluate themselves. And yet Trump supporters have declared to not trust fact checkers either. They don’t even bother looking at the links to the fact check let alone the sources the fact checkers supply. If it is not pro-Trump, pro-party, it is left and exist only to destroy the America.

This just completely shut down any information that does not fit the party narrative. The complete distrust of any information that is not in the Narrative, and support of only pro-narrative content even if it is from unknown sources, opinion pieces, or youtube videos made by complete strangers with no source or credit to the creator is damning in their eyes. How can they ever communicate with you if you can only hear what you want to hear at all cost?

- Violence -

The DOJ and FBI and independent bipartisan think tanks have all offered studies and reports that show that the civil rights protests below any previous civil rights protests in history and that the actual violence seems to be coming from out-side right wing instigators. “Armed Militias” that are pro-Trump invading protest or “counter protesting” and causing violence and damage have been found to be consistent in protest across the country.

Their perspective-

There are so many death threats by Trump supporters that even members of the government that work for Trump are now receiving security if they step a little out of line with what Trump says or wants them to say.

Journalists who report on any news that is not pro-Trump or question Trump have to hire security teams. The journalist from 60 minutes who asked a question that was so tough that Trump stormed out now has a security team to protect her from Trump supporters.

A democratically elected governor had a plot to kidnap and possibly kill her over her politically butting heads with Trump.

Doctors, Scientists, and experts in Covid who publish anything that contradicts Trump are experiencing death threats. Even Covid patients who might publicly speak on their social media have reported death threats from Trump supporters. A video game publishers developers got death threats for an ad campaign about a WWII shooting game where you “Kill Nazi’s” because Right-wing Trump supporters felt it was anti-right wing, pro-left wing and making the game “too political” and pointed at them.

And it doesn’t stop there.

As of writing this there are now reports of Trump supporters showing up to polling locations armed to “poll watch” which is encouraged by Trump himself and his family. And there are reports of Trump supporters harassing voters, and even harassing the Biden campaign bus.

Threats of violence everywhere. Almost everyone who contributed to this story shared that they were or had received death threats by Trump supporters. Almost all of them stated it was from family. Family telling them they would deserve to get run over, or that they deserved to get shot, or that they themselves, a family member would “shoot them themselves” if they didn’t vote for Trump. This is the most heart breaking of this story. In one example, their family was made up of former military and LEO’s. Their cousin that they grew up with, loved and for years was their closest friend, participated in a threat where they mocked them and suggested ways they would be dead for being a “liberal.” It escalated to their cousin suggesting they would run them over themselves to put them out of their misery. This was their family and others were involved in making the comments mocking them.

While this was the exception in the stories I received, I suspect that if my small group of contributors exposed a story like this, then there are more.

- Extremism –

“the holding of extreme political or religious views; fanaticism.”

Trump supporters seem to demonstrate that there are only absolutes. You are either part of the Trump train, or you are the enemy. You are either pro-all guns, or you are trying to take all guns away. You either believe that democrats are really socialists who are trying to take all your rights away or you are trying to take their rights away. You are either pro-police and believe they always tell the truth, always are under threat, and deserve full militarization to deal with the left, or you are the left and the threat. Not only do you have to be pro-Trump you have to express it with flags, signs, and reposting every pro-right, every pro-trump post or you are not loyal to the cause.

Their perspective-

This extremism scares everyone that is not Pro-Trump. Whether a person is a progressive, communist, social, independent, has no politics, or even many conservatives who are educated, loyal to the values and morals of conservatism and don’t support Trump, this sums up everything that we have discussed so far. They see the flags, the posts, the violence, the threats, the loyalty, the flag, the fanaticism around Trump and it echoes what most Americans have feared since WWII. They see a nation where the American government characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of a strong central power to preserve the political status quo, and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic voting which is Authoritarianism. They see you as at the least tolerating it and at the worst encouraging and supporting it as it grows in our America at the expense of your relationship with them and others.

What can you do?

Let’s be honest here. If you have been running around with Trump flags all over your car in traffic and breaking traffic laws, shooting paintballs at people, going on people’s social media to call them liars, fake news, libtards, and posting #MAGA2020 after they have tried to communicate to you in the past, you might not be able to repair your relationship regardless of who wins the election. All of these behaviors, let alone threatening them or wishing harm on them, goes WAY beyond politics and won’t end after this elections.

These behaviors are not politics and they are not normal during an election or for that matter ever.

But if you are are willing to try and repair the relationship with your family, friends, or co-workers you could try these steps which begin with doing some self evaluating of your on behavior online:

1. Take step back or ask a friend of family member who might be in your life that you think isn’t as pro-trump or not pro-trump to go over your posts, comments, and messages with a notepad an paper and do a tally of how many of your posts and comments that are related to excusing something Trump said or did. See if it was more often than you expected.

2. Look at how many posts you have posted that include violence towards the left.

3. Do a word count of how many times you have used the term “liberal” “leftists” “socialist” or other terms to describe someone that you perceive as not a Trump supporter.

4. Were you pro-police before the BLM movement? Were you always cheering the police like you are now?

5. Read the actual content they posted to you. Learn about ANTIFA, BLM, and what Fascism is so that you understand what you are defending when you defend Trump supporters who are anti-BLM and anti-Antifa.

6. Read the DOJ and FBI reports on the protest and right-wing violence.

7. Learn how fact checkers’ work. Remember that you don’t have to agree with their results, but you can use their sources to come to your own conclusions based on their sources. You can even submit new sources.

8. Start looking at the sources of the Youtube channels and the Websites you are using for your defense and making excuses. Who is the author? Who owns this site? Are they posting their sources and are the sources real, like studies, court documents, government agency reports or articles published in respected journals or just other sites like the one you are on?

9. Finally take a tally of every time you have mocked, threatened, wished, and joked about violence towards others over your support of Trump. Look at this number, is this who you are?

Let’s be honest, if you are reading this and you got to the end, you are likely not a Trump supporter, you are either an independent, a centrist, a non-Trump Republican, a Democrat, or some other than a Trump Supporter. You nodded along, agreeing with the categories, wishing I had added more, pointing out what I missed based on your own experience and hoping that Trump supporters in your life would read this to the end and practice my suggestions. You’re welcome to share it in whole, or in part, if you think it will make a difference.

But if you are an actual Trump supporter and you made it this far because you are hurt by the loss of your family or friend because of your support from Trump. This is the best offering of answers I can give you. Debating these behaviors, defending yourself to me, or denying everything I posted here is not going to change how you are perceived by those you have lost over this election. In their eyes you’ve condone these behaviors whether you have taken part in them or not. That is the responsibility you take on in a democracy. You will have that association with those who you have lost and others around you for the rest of your life.

As a conservative and a card carrying member of the Republican party since 1996, a former journalist for a right bias newspaper, and a Biden hater; I understand how important party loyalty is. Bringing yourself to vote for a Democrat, even Biden — the most conservative democrat their party has ever seen — feels sick and impossible.

But it’s not.

The Republican party should have never become the party that is seen as Nationalist, as anti-Antifa, as anti-civil rights, as anti-science, as anti-empathetic to the sick and poor of our Nation. We should never be seen as pro-national police, pro-federal government or as the party that divides Americans, the party that only addresses its own.

The Republican party should be the party that denounces all this loud and proud.

In my opinion, if you really want to have a chance to repair what is broken in these relationships, don’t make excuses for helping keep the man in power that caused you and others to behave in these ways.