This is a comment to a story on Facebook... :
"Dear Mr. Trump,
It’s taken me a while to realize this and to admit it, but I’m grateful to you.
For
the past few months I’ve spent a good deal of time lamenting your
campaign and the poison it has so effortlessly generated. I’ve watched
our country imploding, our public discourse become polluted, our
political climate grows ever more corrosive, and wrongly assumed you
were to blame.
It’s only lately I’ve come to understand that you haven’t manufactured our current national ugliness—you’ve simply revealed it.
By
saying the irresponsible, mean-spirited, ignorant things you say so
freely and so frequently, you’ve given other like-minded people license
to do the same. You’ve opened up the floodgates for our corporate sewage
to flow fully. People no longer conceal their vile mess, they now revel
in it, they broadcast it and retweet it.
You’ve made
bigotry and racism socially acceptable again and that has been a kind of
twisted gift because it’s allowed me to really see people; not as they
pretend to be on the surface—but in the very depths of their wounded,
weaponized hearts.
Over and over as your campaign has
persisted, your supporters would tell me that they like you because you
“speak your mind”. It wasn’t until recently that I’ve realized that you
speak their minds. You’ve given credence to their prejudices and made
those prejudices go mainstream.
Thanks to the terrible
ground you’ve broken, politicians, pastors, friends, and strangers, both
in person and on social media now regularly out themselves as hateful,
intolerant, and malicious—and they remind me just how close they are to
me, just how deep the sickness in us runs, and just how far we have to
go together.
You’ve emboldened people to be open about
things they used to conceal for the sake of decorum, and though it turns
my stomach, I know that this is the only way we can move forward; to
have that cancerous stuff exposed fully so that it can be dealt with.
Our progress as a nation is predicated on authentic dialogue, no matter
how brutal and disheartening that dialogue is.
In other
words, you’ve let us know what we’re really dealing with here and while
it’s been rightly disturbing, it’s also been revelatory. That’s the
thing about that kind of harsh light: you’re forced to see everything.
Beauty and monstrosity equally illuminated.
Now don’t
get me wrong, I think you’re the least qualified, least knowledgeable
Presidential candidate we may ever have had participate this far into
the process, and if you somehow were elected I’d fear gravely for the
world my children would inherit—should it survive your Presidency at
all. I believe you’re reckless, bitter, and completely reprehensible;
the very worst kind of bully.
But whether you win or
lose, you’ve already allowed me the blessing of Truth; about me, about
you, about other candidates, about our nation.
And in the process you’ve also shown me that I am not alone in resisting you and this ugly thing you’ve revealed about us.
You’ve generated an equally loud, equally passionate response to it and this is where I find my hope these days.
I find it in those for whom equality isn’t just a cheap buzzword, it’s the most precious of hills to die on.
I find it in those people who refuse to be silent in the face of our impending shared regression.
I find it in those willing to be bolder in defending the inherent value of all people.
I find it in the growing army of those who will not tolerate hatred as a core American value.
I find it in those who reject violence as our default response to dissension.
I find it in the ever rising voice of people who will not let malice and bitterness represent them in the world.
Today
I find my hope in those who, like me, will not be complicit in allowing
bigotry and intolerance to become a source of national pride, because
we’ve seen where that leads.
Yes, Mr Trump, you’ve unearthed our hidden sickness and you’ve allowed it to go viral.
You brought every awful thing about us out into the open.
You will NEVER Get My Vote!"
To which all I could say was "EXACTLY"...
Badge Henry
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