Getting off the Trump Trains

I'm going to say there are two Trump trains.

The first train is full of Trump adoration.  Some of it's riders see Trump as a hilarious superstar. They've been fans of him since The Apprentice...or maybe even before that. It's wonderful to them that "their guy" got himself all the way up to the White House. 

Other riders see Trump as some sort of Messiah. He is the one ordained by the mysterious Q. Trump is going to save the real Americans from socialists, globalists, Democrats, and Hollywood elitists. He's going to rescue the real American children from the blood-drinking habits of Tom Hanks and Oprah Winfrey. 

Some riders don't believe in all this Q nonsense. They're not into conspiracies. But still. They worry about the Clintons and Hunter's laptop. And they worry about all those children being kidnapped by sexual predators. No, no. Again. They don't believe in that QAnon stuff. But they're seeing stuff on social media with the hashtag SavetheChildren, and it breaks their heart.

The riders on this train love that Trump is brave enough to stand up against mask mandates, political correctness, lockdowns, Black Lives Matter protesters, and Antifa. 

Trump is their law and order president. He's going to keep them safe from Black People (AKA thugs) that get too close to white suburban neighborhoods. He's going to make sure to keep as many brown and black immigrants out of America as he possibly can.

The other Trump train is full of people who don't like Trump, but they don't think he's THAT bad. 

One side of the train has conservative riders. They don't like Trump as a person. They see him as obnoxious and embarrassing. They wish he'd stop Tweeting so much. But at the same time, they appreciate what he's doing for our country. They're thankful for what he's done in the Middle East. They're thankful for Operation Warp Speed. They're thankful that he gives brave law enforcement officers the respect they deserve. They're thankful that he's packing the courts with conservative judges. Because that will protect America from being destroyed by liberals. They're thankful that he speaks out so forcefully against the extremely dangerous ANTIFA organization that is trying to destroy our statues and the fabric of our nation.  

On the other side of the train are liberals. They don't like the conservative agenda, period. But really...what's the big deal about Trump? Yeah, he's awful. But how is that any different from any other Republican? THIS is where I sat before the end of September 2016.

Tim was never on the Trump train. During the election campaigning, he obsessively railed against Trump. It seemed like he'd find a way to turn every dinner conversation back to the subject of Trump. I found it pretty annoying. 

Jack was doing government for homeschooling at the time. For one of our activities, we read Trump's campaign website. We looked at his policies. Yeah. We didn't like them. But to us, they really didn't seem worse than any other Republican's. Really, we wondered. What was the big deal?

I got off the Trump train during one of Trump's debates with Clinton—the one where he stalked around her like a predator. The one where he attempted to gaslight the nation by claiming he never said climate change was a concept/hoax invented by Chinese even though there's a Trump Tweet showing otherwise.

I jumped off the secondary Trump train then and never got back on.

In the last four years, many people have jumped off the Trump trains. Many of them have fought passionately to try and get others off the train. They fought to end Trumpism. And sadly, they/we will continue to have to fight. No matter how bad things get, there will still be people who refuse to exit the Trump trains.

Enough people, though, got off the Trump train by last November for Biden to win the election.

81 million people were either never on the Trump train or at some point, they got off in time to vote for Biden.

A horrific 74 million people were still on the Trump train, and they voted for Trump.

After the election, one would suspect that those 74 million would still support Trump.  That's perfectly normal. I mean it's NOT normal to support Trump. I don't condone that in anyway.  But I think it's expected that people will be angry, disappointed, and scared when their presidential candidate loses.

Some Trump supporters felt the pain but accepted reality.

Other Trump supporters.—way too many—clung to Trump's lies regarding the election being stolen from him.

I saw a joke on Twitter that illustrates the whole thing very well.

Two Trump supporters die and go to heaven. They're given the opportunity to ask God one question. So they ask, how did the Democrats manage to rig the election?

God says, They DIDN'T rig the elections.

The Trump supporters reply. Wow. This conspiracy goes even higher up than we thought!

It didn't matter how many courts (even the Supreme Court) shot down Trump's allegations. Trump worshippers refused to believe that Biden was elected as the next POTUS.

Now because of all this craziness, I think there were more people stepping off the Trump trains. They had closed their eyes to Trump's bad behavior in the past, but now they were realizing that it would be best to get off the train.  

As we moved from November to January, I think more and more people stepped off the trains.

Some were still on one of the trains on the morning of January 6. By the afternoon and evening, some people FINALLY stepped off while others continued to cling either fervently or weakly to one of the Trump trains.  

In my opinion, January 6 was too late for people to step off the train without retribution. It's too late to just brush the dust off, shrug one's shoulders, and move on. There needs to be apologies. There needs to be expressions of sincere regret. There needs to be attempts at amends. 

For me, here are the NOT acceptable ways to step off the train on or after January 6. 

1. By condemning Trump and his terrorists but push the idea that the Black Lives Matter protests were worse.  If it doesn't matter to you that one protest was against systemic racism going back over two hundred years, including deadly police brutality, and the other protest was against democracy....you are really NOT off the Trump train.

2. By equating the 2020-2021 assault on democracy to disgruntled voters of 2000 and 2016. I won't deny that the level of disgruntledness were equal. But the past upsets did not include a President refusing to  to concede.

They did not include a president spouting election lies over and over and over on social media platforms.  

They did not include a lawyer associated with the President suggesting that the Vice-President be executed. 

They did not include a President calling up a state and spending an hour pressuring politicians from his own party to change the vote.  

They did not include a President encouraging/PUSHING people to go and protest.

They did not include a President pressuring his Vice-President to refuse the results of the election.  

3. By stepping off the train with the attitude that Trump was a beautiful President. You think he did a swell job. But now he's suddenly suffering some kind of breakdown.  His legacy has been unfortunately stained. Ruined. You're going to blow him a kiss, wish him a lovely recovery, and step off that train.  

No, no, and no.

I don't accept any of those Trump train departures.

At this juncture, the only departure I will accept sounds something like this.

I was very wrong about Trump.  I now finally realize this. I am sorry I took so long to see the hurt and pain he has caused, the damage he has done to our country and the world.  Please tell me what I can do to help fix things.

Read my novel: The Dead are Online