For America's Survival, His Supporters Must Be Ostracized

Photo by m. on Unsplash

Decent people need to face a really painful truth at this point:

Far too many of our family members, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and classmates are fully complicit in this carnage.

His absolute disregard for the Constitution, throwing our nation into perpetual chaos;
his rejection of the rule of Law, stripping elemental rights from tens of millions of Americans;
his unthinkable, unspeakable treatment of human beings rounded up like animals and jailed without probable cause;
his capricious and violent crusade against federal workers, universities, law firms, public school teachers, medical professionals, and journalists.

The people we love, live alongside; those we work and study shoulder to shoulder with; those we have invited into our hearts and homes. They are as responsible for all of this as he is, as those in his Cabinet are.

The war crimes in Gaza and Ukraine.
The medical relief, ripped from the poorest of the world.
The scalding panic felt by immigrants, both documented and undocumented.

They are culpable for all of it.

The literal and figurative blood is on their hands.

They may as well be smashing the car windows of a migrant family waiting for their lawyer to ensure due process,
joyously ripping the lunches from children living in poverty,
unceremoniously terminating federal employees after decades of faithful service, terrorizing transgender students in their school hallways,
accosting pregnant women in emergency rooms.

They could have so easily stopped this.

They could have allowed their humanity to come to bear back in the fall, when it was clear that he was cognitively shattered, that his singular goal was a fascist dictatorship, that his agenda would consist solely of retribution against those who sought legal and moral accountability for him.

Instead, our childhood friends, our favorite uncles, and our next-door neighbors ignored revered journalists, Constitutional scholars, renowned economists, and past presidents.

They shunned their responsibility as Americans, they rejected the teachings of their faith tradition, and they abandoned any kind of moral footing by enabling the ascension of a felon-rapist-scumbag mobster who lacks a single noble impulse. Through whatever combination of racism, misogyny, prejudice, intellectual ignorance, and plain old hatred, they willfully coronated him.

And now, they either fully endorse this most vicious and vile season in our nation’s history, or enable it by their cowardice and silence.

And as a result, this senseless waste of life, this asinine global trade war, this stupid squandering of prosperity, this sociopathic predation against citizens and immigrants—they are collaborators on all of it.

And in light of this, they do not deserve proximity with those of us who are hourly pushing back against the criminality, exposing the atrocities, caring for those under duress. They are nothing but barriers to healing and obstacles to justice.

I’m not sure America can even survive the damage we’ve sustained in such a short time. Despite our best efforts, it may not be possible (at least in our lifetimes) to stop the bleeding, reverse course, and repair all that has been damaged since January 20th.

But if any of this is going to happen: if we are going to salvage our Republic from this massive wrecking ball of cruelty, it is going to be necessary for the good people of this nation to sever ties with those still loyal to him. We need to withhold our friendship, exclude them from our holiday gatherings, cut personal and professional ties, and practically speaking, marginalize them.

If we truly believe in bending the arc of the moral universe toward justice at this place and time, his supporters need to become pariahs. They should not be welcome where good people gather. They need to be held accountable for unleashing this hell on the rest of us.

I’m not speaking about those who have or will come to their senses; those with the humility and empathy to admit their errors; those who will be visible and vocal in their resistance to this Administration. While it would have been far better for their souls to have been accessed much earlier, later is still better than never.

But as far as his cheerleaders, champions, kindred spirits, sycophants, and disciples—they are proving themselves unreachable with reason, impervious to compassion, and mortally allergic to anything that reasonable human beings value.

As in other times of historic fascist regimes, there is no ambiguity left now.

The lines are starkly drawn, the factions clearly defined, the opposing values unmistakable.

On one side of this battle for the soul of our nation, the safety of its people, and the welfare of the planet, is the sprawling interdependent community of those committed to healing, kindness, and the common good.

And on the other side stands this historically unredeemable would-be king and those who regardless of the story they tell themselves, still inexplicably stand alongside him.

Compromise is not an option, and because of that many of us are going to need to lean into our convictions and move away from people we know, love, and once respected.

Sadly and tragically, that’s just how this has to be.