What Are We Going to Do About The Trumpers?
It’s easy to joke that Trump is incompetent, and that he is something we need to bury away and never think about again. But since 2016, many of us have experienced collective years-long trauma induced by hate speech and the violence which is born from it. Hundreds of thousands of people have died directly from American violence and injustice; by the hands of tax-funded and government-backed police brutality, inaccess to healthcare and lack of medical resources, tenant eviction and the maltreatment of homeless people, to name a few. We feel the need to believe that the worst is over because we’ve survived five long, grueling years, but this is far from over. We need to fight back. The high road was decimated a long time ago, and honestly, a lot of us who think we are on it never were from the start.
I feel like many of us imagine that Trumpers slinked away into caves and under-dwellings. But in reality, they’re everywhere. They’re still making the laws that only we abide by, they’re still donating millions of dollars to heinous causes, they’re still loud and proud and planning. We can’t fall back asleep. And to those of us who have, let’s wake up.
We can continue to take an easier pill to swallow by misguidedly thinking of the average Trump supporter as a sexist, racist idiot to cast aside. Or, we can understand and rebel against the power and influence held by these people and the wealthy elites who support Trump politically and financially. The average American idiot voted for him, but so did CEOs of billion-dollar corporations and high-profile celebrities, who also influenced others to vote in their favor and donated millions of dollars to his campaigns and rallies.
As many conservatives have said, the “Trump Train is alive and well.” Shortly after the election results were confirmed, Fox News host Judge Jeanine Pirro stated that, “75 million of us are still angry about the election.” In 2020, 75 million people in America voted for Trump. 75 million people, even after four years of political upheaval, social uprisings, medical and financial crises, and a climbing death toll from a virus that Trump downplayed and refused to acknowledge until it was too late and hundreds of thousands of people died.
Part of understanding that we need to take action is to digest how disturbingly close the 2020 election results actually were. Even with everything Trump has committed during his time as President, including sabotaging the postal service so fewer people could vote, he lost the Electoral College by less than 1% in multiple states. Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, so on. I remember watching the votes trickle in, feeling sick, looking at 0.4% and 0.2% differences between who was leading, watching key swing states swing in real time between red and blue. “How is this happening?” I had asked myself. “With everything he’s done, how is it still so close?”
No matter how difficult it is to wrap my head around why it happened, it happened. We need to move forward. What do we do next? How are we going to stop them? They are plotting and have been plotting for months and will continue to plot until 2024 and beyond. We can’t keep pretending like things are better, even if it feels like they are. Trumpers are coordinating on their own apps and websites, formulating their next moves, as we wonder why President Joe Biden’s dog has a biting habit or what color suit VP Kamala Harris is going to wear as she strides down another hallway.
Fewer Democrats want to re-elect President Biden than those who do. What is the Biden Administration doing to push for re-election? Not much, if anything at all. So far, they’ve given Americans $1400 stimulus checks instead of the $2000 stimulus that they promised on their campaign platform, regressed on their dedication to eliminating student debt, staunchly supported the police force and the military, including funding the ongoing genocide Israel is inflicting upon Palestinians, and neglected to create any solutions to combating the Anti-Asian violence that has drastically risen since the start of the pandemic. All-in-all, Biden won by a hair, and he’s done virtually nothing to keep his position. Fewer people plan on voting for him a second time, and the Trumpers are ready and able to vote Trump back into office. On June 26, Trump was at one of his rallies in Ohio, throwing “Save America” hats to the audience before he began his speech.
Trump and his followers continue to push for election recounts, unyielding in their claims that the election results were fraudulent. Despite many Republicans having acquiesced to the voting outcome, those who haven’t are pushing for the ballot audit in Arizona. While the results of this audit appear to have no tangible effect on the election results, the intensity and anger fueling this operation displays the undyingly blind loyalty of Trumpers. In the Politico article titled, “Arizona Ballot Audit Shows Signs of Backfiring on GOP,” Marc Caputo writes:
Trump has cheered on the Maricopa County audit and continued to advance baseless conspiracy theories about election fraud as Republicans from other states he lost have made pilgrimages to Phoenix to review the idea of exporting the concept...Just over five months into his first year in office, only 37 percent of Arizona voters surveyed said Biden deserves a second term, while 53 percent say he does not. Fueling those numbers: strong Republican opposition to the president, relatively tepid Democratic support and double-digit opposition from independents.
Do we recall the absolute terror felt on January 6th? Over the last six months, we’ve devolved into speaking about these insurrectionists like they’re morons to laugh at. Humor is a common coping mechanism--and one I use often--but we need to recognize the difference between those laughing in order to deal with trauma versus those invalidating the danger of a group which continues to be a threat. We can think of these insurrectionists as stupid all we want, and while we laugh at them, they will shoot us. These are domestic terrorists who committed an assault on democracy at the nation’s Capitol, not a group of teenagers egging a house. We all remember that they brought rope, zip ties, mace, guns, homemade bombs, and a myriad of other weapons to hold dozens of people hostage until they got what they wanted. Some were even planning on murdering members of Congress. And for what purpose? The “right” election results.
Currently active GOP members were part of the insurrection. For weeks leading up, Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert frequently posted on Twitter about how the election results were fraudulent. During this time, she filmed herself carrying a concealed weapon on Capitol grounds and gave tours inside the Capitol, so those who would be coming knew the layout of the building. (She must have found time to do this in between managing her restaurant in Rifle, CO called “Shooters Grill,” where the all-white staff members are encouraged to openly carry firearms). Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has joined the GOP opposition to a bipartisan commission to investigate the insurrection. Why is there an opposition to this at all? In May, Greene gave an emboldened speech on the House floor in which she deflected answering questions about the insurrection, and instead, asked why we weren’t concerned about the well-being of the insurrectionists. She also continued to amplify false claims of the election having been stolen from Trump. These GOP members and many others still proudly support Trump, although they deny any involvement in the attempt to destroy our nation’s democracy. They and other powerful politicians are still lining Trump’s pockets and lining up followers for his army.
This insurrection was encouraged by Trump. He posted on Twitter weeks before the insurrection, for people to “wait for January 6th.” He fanned the flames of false claims that the election was stolen, and that the American people deserved a “fair election.” He did this knowing that people would get hurt and anticipating that some could die. Terrorists were specifically searching for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, both of whom are constant targets of harassment by Trump and his followers. As these terrorists became angrier, they began building a hangman’s noose for former Vice President Mike Pence. Some even flew into DC specifically with the goal to harm Pence. Chants were heard outside the Capitol that day, “Kill Mike Pence! Kill Mike Pence!” Dozens of government officials were hiding in various rooms of the Capitol, fearing for their lives, attempting to contact their families in case they were about to die.
Trump’s response to this horrifying, dangerous, and deadly insurrection was to tell these terrorists on national television, “Go home. We love you.” He then went on the internet, accessible to the world, and wrote on Twitter:
These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!
Trump 2024 flags and merchandise are popping up more frequently. My best friend recently told me that she was driving along a bridge next to a pickup truck with a “Trump 2024 flag” flying from the back. My initial reaction was to think that this was strange and too early for someone to have, but then I remembered that as soon as the 2020 election was over, and also after countless attempts to overturn the results, many Trumpers immediately began preparing for “Trump’s 2024 run.” We laughed at them, and while some laughter is deserved, none of it should come from a place of comfort. They are going to fight harder than ever to bring him back and we need to fight harder than ever to keep him down.
Let’s wake the fuck up and start planning.
Politico article -
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/29/arizona-ballot-audit-gop-biden-496908
Marjorie Taylor Greene info -
https://news.yahoo.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-defends-abused-154320850.html
Stefania D'Andrea is a prose and comedy writer from Queens, NY. She is one of the original staff readers for the literary magazine Cagibi, where she edits and reviews works of fiction and non-fiction. Her first short story, In Her Head, is published in the 12th issue of Newtown Literary. Many of her comedy sketches have been performed at the People's Improv Theatre (PIT) in New York City in 2018 and 2019. Stefania received her B.A. in English, with a concentration in Creative Writing, from the Macaulay Honors College at CUNY Hunter in 2017.
