Trumpers Cause Trumpism

This blog was posted on Daily Kos on Dec. 13, 2025.

As we look ahead to how people are seeking to stop America from becoming completely a one-party authoritarian state in the coming year, let's look back once again on what happened in 2024. The presidential election wasn't the "blowout" or "mandate" that Republicans brag it was, but it was decisive. 

Remember, Democrats--and you "progressives" and "liberals" who brag about no party affiliation, too, how we watched on Election Night as swing state after swing state that turned blue for Biden in 2020 turned red for Trump in 2024:  Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Georgia, all were called for Trump on Election Night. Arizona and Nevada took a little longer, but they were colored red by the end of Election Night, too, the official call a few days later was just a formality, because even if those last two states somehow tallied up enough votes to turn blue, Trump was going to be president anyway.

We do remember 2020, right, when we waited days to make sure Biden had enough of the electoral college to win? When Pennsylvania was finally called for Biden and people literally danced in the streets, right? In 2024 there were no cliff-hangers. We knew by the time Election Night was over that seven states that voted for Biden in 2020 refused to vote for Kamala Harris in 2024 and voted for Trump instead.

Here I'm talking about those 77 million people that voted for Trump in 2024 while Democrats failed to get enough voters in enough states to get the 80 millon or so votes that Biden got in 2020.

I'm not talking about the people who, however reluctantly, voted for Harris. I'm not talking about the people that voted Republican down ballot but left the top slot blank. I'm not talking about the people that voted for a third party. I'm not talking about the people that just didn't vote at all. I'm talking about Trump voters, and I don't want to hear any excuses about, "but the Democrats." I know not a single one of you proud Trumpers may be reading this, but I'm talking about you anyway. 

For many years we've heard how, if only people had the information about progressive left-of-center candidates, then the majority of America's voters would support progressive left-of-center candidates. Back before the Internet and the iPhone, when mass communication was confined to broadcast and print, much of it corporate, back in those days, insufficient desemination of left-of-center viewpoints may have explained the failure of many liberal candidates to gain majority support. Voters, especially low-information voters, couldn't be expected to vote for a candidate about which the mainstream media provided insufficient information.

Now, though, everybody has an iPhone and everybody surfs the Internet. You can no longer blame lack of access to adequate information about progressive candidates and a liberal agenda--or even a reasonably moderate agenda--for why tens of millions of voters across multiple states continue to vote against even moderately progressive candidates and even moderately liberal agendas and for people like Trump, candidates that are not just an ordinary thoughtful type of conservative, but a combination of dangerous, sleazy, and narrow-minded. Either these tens of millions of Republican-supporting voters, across dozens of entire states, flatly and stubbornly refuse to seek out information about left-of-center candidates, or else those millions of Republican-supporting voters honestly do share the values of the dangerous, sleazy, and narrow-minded conservative Republicans like Trump that they vote for. 

You 77 million Trump voters, you knew that your man was convicted of 34 felonies. You knew that. You had no excuse not to. You voted for him anyway.

You know those 34 felonies were for campaign fraud, as in fraud, a financial crime. You knew that. You had no excuse not to. You voted for him anyway.

You knew he encouraged an armed and angry lynch mob to "fight like Hell" at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, where that mob voiced its intention to hang the vice president. You knew that. You had no excuse not to. You voted for him anyway.

You knew he was impeached for sending that armed and angry lynch mob to the Capitol on January 6, 2021 to attack and beat police officers and threaten to hang his own vice president. You knew that. You had no excuse not to. You voted for him anyway.

You knew he told more than 30,000 lies during his first term as president, often lying between the beginning and the end of a sentence--demonstrating beyond reasonable doubt that he often is either lying at the beginning of a sentence or lying at the end, there's no way both the beginning and end could be true. That's not even counting all the lies he's told in his lifetime, or the ones he told between 2020 and 2025. You knew that. You had no excuse not to. You voted for him anyway.

You knew, if you actually spent any time listening to and thinking about the stream of contradictions that regularly come out of the man's mouth, you'd know he freely makes false statements, even if you didn't keep count. You knew that. You voted for him anyway.

You knew he was caught with whole rooms full of classified government documents hoarded at his Mar-a-Lago country club, many of which were not supposed to be removed from a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF). (If you don't know what a SCIF is, Google it.) You knew that. You had no excuse not to. You voted for him anyway.

You knew that to have those rooms full of classified government documents hoarded at Trump's Mar-a-Lago country club, the ones that were not supposed to be removed from a SCIF, would have had to have been stolen from a SCIF in order to be removed from a SCIF. You knew that. You had no excuse not to. You voted for him anyway.

You knew he boasted of grabbing women by the "pussy." You knew that. You had no excuse not to. You voted for him anyway, and are even now perhaps bragging about how you voted for him three times--while knowing that.

You knew he ran his businesses into bankruptcy six times, so much for "business acumen." You knew that. You had no excuse not to. You voted for him anyway.

You knew he was lying when he said he was going to impose tariffs and make other countries pay them. (If you don't know what a tariff is, or you don't understand what it is, Google it. Keep Googling it until you do understand it.) You knew that. You had no excuse not to. You voted for him anyway.

You knew he said not paying taxes is smart. You knew that. You had no excuse not to. You voted for him anyway.

You knew he cheated on his first wife with his second, got a messy divorce from his first, cheated on his second wife with his third, got a messy divorce from his second, and cheated on his third wife, too. You knew that. You voted for him anyway, so don't lecture the rest of us about "traditional values."

You knew what he said about football players kneeling for a Black Lives Matter protest was, "Get that sonovabitch off the field." You knew that. You had no excuse not to. You voted for him anyway.

You knew he said he would be a dictator, and you knew his boast about "only on Day One" was a lie, because no dictator is a dictator for one day only. You knew that. You had no excuse not to. You voted for him anyway.

You knew that he was for Project 2025 before he started saying he didn't know anything about it, which is what he says about anything he wants to get out of knowing about. You knew that. You had no excuse not to. You voted for him anyway.

You knew he was lying when he said he was going to build a wall between the US and Mexico and make Mexico pay for it. You knew that. You had no excuse not to. You voted for him anyway.

You knew he was lying when he said he was going to, "immediately bring prices down, starting on Day One" and all the other lies he told about bringing prices down. You knew no president in a capitalist system could do that. You voted for him anyway.

You knew he insulted several countries in Africa with an obscenity. You knew that, you had no excuse not to, and you voted for him to lead America's diplomacy anyway.

You knew he ordered the extra-judicial killing of an Iranian general in a time of peace. You knew that. You voted for him anyway.

You knew that when Iran retaliated for the general's death, injuring numerous US personnel, Trump shrugged off the brain damage our servicemembers suffered as, "some headaches." You knew that. You had no excuse not to. You voted for him anyway.

You knew he lost a fraud case against Trump University. You knew that. You had no excuse not to. You voted for him anyway.

You knew he was the closest friend of convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein for ten years, that they were photographed partying up and oggling women together, and Trump bragged about how, "he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them on the younger side." You knew that. You had no excuse not to. You voted for him anyway, possibly at the same time you were repeating salacious gossip linking Clinton and Epstein.

You knew Trump looked out over a veterans' cemetary and said, "I don't get it. What's in it for them?" You knew that. You had no excuse not to. You voted for him anyway.

You knew he didn't attend a memorial service for D-Day because it was raining and he didn't want to mess up his hair. You knew that. You had no excuse not to. You voted for him anyway.

You knew he was caught on tape telling the Georgia Secretary of State, "All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes . . . I only need 11,000 votes." You knew that. You had no excuse not to. You voted for him anyway. 

You knew he also told the Georgia Secretary of State, "That's a criminal offense, you can't let that happen. That's a big risk to you." You knew that. You had no excuse not to. You voted for him anyway.

You knew he was impeached for telling the head of a foreign government, "I would like you to do us a favor though," for which the "favor" was spreading false dirt on Trump's political rivals in exchange for fulfilling defense contracts, which is an obvious quid pro quo. No matter how often Trump brayed it wasn't. You knew that. You had no excuse not to, and if you didn't understand it, you could've Googled it until you did. You voted for him anyway.

You Trump-supporting farmers out in the reddest regions of the reddest states, you experienced back in Trump's first term, he left thousands (at least) of you with no markets to sell to, and thosands or even millions of you farmers voted for him all over again anyway. You were willing to ruin the market for your crops again because, transgender athletes, was that it?

What else? There's about 30,000 "what else" but we have to end this list somewhere. This is the man you freely chose as your president, as the leader of our country. You wanted a man who lies tens of thousands of times to lead your country. You wanted a guy who crimes dozens of times while white (nearly three dozen convictions and almost that many accusations) to lead your fine and mighty country. Apparently the man can't do enough criminal things for you to think he's criminal. Apparently the man can't do enough dishonest things for you to think he's dishonest. Apparently the man can't do enough sadistic things for you to think he's sadistic. Or else you want a president who's dishonest, criminal, and sadistic, because that's the kind of guy that speaks for you.  

We can only conclude that for roughly 77 million of you, that's your idea of a really good president. Not just a few million of you, not just a few tens of millions of you scattered around backwards pockets in super-conservative states, but enough tens of millions of you to turn seven entire "purple" states red--all of them the same states that demonstrated in 2020 that they can muster a majority of voters who know better than to vote for a liar and a fraudster--and that was before he was a 34-time convicted criminal, an unauthorized hoarder of classified secrets, and sent an armed and angry lynch mob to hang his own vice president. 

What happened to that blue majority in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Minnesota? Why didn't they turn out the numbers to beat you? That's another blog.

Weird Guys: "Wheel me Back in!"

 Continuing my series on my experiences with one or more weird guys, I invite others to share their "weird guy" stories as well.

My beat-up Volkswagen needed some repairs to its upholstery, and this was in the eighties when you didn't Google "auto upholstery" shops. You looked in the Yellow Pages and then went to check out likely addresses. 

I was checking out an address in Wilmington, that community that's centered around the Port of Los Angeles, and the address I found turned out to not be an auto upholstery shop, just an auto parts store. They were probably just listed in the phone book because they sold sheepskin seat covers, or something like that, but I thought I'd stop in anyway. One of the clerks might be able to suggest a good auto upholstery shop nearby, or something.

I parked on the street right outside the store's door and went in. There appeared to be only one employee, a woman at the cash register, and she had a line of two or three customers. Near the check-out counter was one other person, a skinny pale-faced pale-haired young man in a wheelchair, and he spoke using of those tracheostomy valves inplanted in his throat.

He looked at me and demanded, "Why are you here?"

I explained I was here to see about getting my car's upholstery repaired.

"Show me your car!" he demanded.

"I need somebody who can give me an estimate for repairing my car's upholstery, do you know somebody who can?" I asked.

"Yeah, yeah, show me your car!"

I figured, no harm in being courteous to him, after all, he might be the check-out woman's son or something. I said, "Fine, I'll show you my car, it's just outside the door."

I held the shop door open and he wheeled out onto the sidewalk. I pointed to my battered Volkswagen and the torn upholstery. "See?" I explained, "That's the upholstery I want repaired."

His immediate response, "Wheel me back in!" 

Not only nothing about the car he was so hot to see, but not even, "Could you please hold the door so I can get back in the shop?" Not even a "please." Kings commanding their servants have more courtesy than he was showing me.

I knew I was wasting my time. I smiled sweetly as I got my keys from my purse and started to get in my car, at the same time saying, politely, "You got yourself out here. You can get yourself back in." 

I got in and started the motor, looked in the rearview mirror. He was struggling in his chair and glaring at me, as if utterly furious, as if he wanted to get out of that chair and pound me into the ground. I drove away.

I encountered a similar type in 2017, not in a wheelchair, but who apparently just thought women were put on this earth for him to make any demand of, anywhere, anytime. I was on a road trip in New Mexico and pulled over to read a roadside historical marker. At least there were other people around, it wasn't like it was a deserted stretch of highway.

I was minding my own business, reading the marker, when a voice demanded, "Gimme your camera! Lemme take your picture!"

I didn't even have my camera on me--it wasn't like it was in plain view, so even his assumption that I had a camera to give was weird.

Not, "Excuse me, Miss, but would you like me to take your picture?"

I looked at the guy and gave a blistering, "No, thank you!"

"But you look so cute," the guy whined, like that was an excuse.

I didn't finish reading the historical marker. I went straight to my car and got the You-know-where out of there. I checked my rear-view mirror a few times to make sure I wasn't being followed. That's the scariest on-the-road encounter I've ever had.

  

Weird Guys: The Landlord and the Wine

When I got a job working for the federal government near the Los Angeles Airport, I found a little two-room apartment in the neighborhood called Westchester to the north of the airport. I made the mistake of thinking I should get on friendly terms with my landlord, get to know him better. After all, I was a new girl in a big strange city, and I thought he'd be the most likely person to build trust with.

I wondered about his family. Did he have a wife and kids? If I asked about them, wouldn't he likely regale me with boasting about his beautiful wife and wonderful kid(s), maybe show off some pictures? Of course maybe he'd say, "Well, I'm happily divorced" or "I'm an old bachelor" or whatever? Maybe he'd get the wrong idea, me asking if he had a wife, some young single woman asking about his wife, but likely nothing that couldn't be laughed off, right?

So when I passed him on the walkway, I said, "You know, I'm new here, and I'd like to get to know you and my neighbors better, so I'm wondering if you're married."

His answer, "My wife died last week."

Who was I to think maybe that wasn't the truth? "I'm so sorry, is there anything I can do? Maybe, dinner?" Honestly, I only made the offer out of courtesy, nothing else. 

His immediate answer, "What kind of wine do you like? I'll bring the wine!" He sounded a little too excited for someone whose "wife died last week."

"That's all right. I don't drink wine."

"What kind of wine do you like? I'll bring the wine!"Nothing about what time, or where, or anything.

"No, really," as I thought fast, as I couldn't risk offending my landlord, "Maybe just some spaghetti, tomorrow, at 6?"

"What kind of wine do you like? I'll bring the wine!"

"No, really, you don't have to bring anything. Just come over for spaghetti tomorrow at 6."

"What kind of wine do you like? I'll bring the wine!"

I began to understand the only way I was going to get out of this was to name a wine. The only one I could think of that went with spaghetti, or that went with--anything--was Blue Nun.

Then I went and called my mother to see if she'd be so kind as to come over and chaperone. She made flakey excuses to decline.

So the guy showed up at my door the next night with a bottle of Blue Nun big enough for an entire wedding party. I asked him why he bought such a large bottle. He made some flakey excuse about that was the only size bottle available.

I told him he'd have to leave right after dinner because I had to go see my mother about something. I know, I know, what a miserable excuse, but it was honestly the only one I could think of.

I was careful to remain distant from the guy, to keep the conversation formal, to put his plate of spaghetti at one end of the table and mine at the other. I drank as little wine as possible, I may have even served myself a Coke, and got him out of there as soon as I could get away with. This was my landlord, after all. I couldn't risk offending him, but I wasn't about to give him any more ideas than he apparently already had.

When he left, I said he was forgetting his bottle of Blue Nun. He said I could keep it. I went out and drove around for a while so I'd look like I really had left to go see my mother.

I'm sure the guy didn't even have a wife, not one that had just died last week, anyway. Either she didn't exist or she was conveniently somewhere else, in another city or even another country. What kind of a guy uses a fake dead wife to try and force wine on someone who owes him rent every month? 

Weird Guys: Stalked by an Anonymous Chain Letter

 After I posted my unpublished essay about not bailing a guy out, I started thinking about other strange happenings in my life that had to do with one or more weird guys. One of the weirdest may be the anonymous chain letter that dogged me for years and I never fully understood why. I never obtained any "smoking gun" evidence tying it to a particular person, but circumstantial evidence makes me 99.99% certain it was a particular guy.

I wasn't a person who regularly got cards or letters from friends in high school. I didn't give my address out to anybody. I didn't have much contact even with those of my classmates that lived in the same neighborhood as me, the ones who would obviously know where I lived.

One day I got a letter, stuffed into a small envelope of the size that's roughly six-and-one-half inches by three-and-three-quarter inches, the size that's often used for mailing checks. No return address, and a Santa Ana postmark that didn't mean much, just that it was postmarked in Santa Ana, not necessarily that the sender lived in Santa Ana.

Inside was a poor-quality photocopied chain letter, poorly composed, poorly typed, incorrectly laid out, no signature block, unsigned. It's not like I memorized the thing, but the gist of it was: this chain letter was blessed by the holy somebody-or-other, in the Phillipines, I think it was, and it had been around the world some number of times, and a person who didn't break the chain won a million-dollar lottery and a person who broke the chain got stung by a scorpion and died.

So I guess it was telling me to do what the holy whatever blessed, or get stung by a scorpion and die. That's nice. Looking back, I think of it the same way I think of that magazine article in the 1980's that warned college-educated unmarried women that they were more likely to be killed by a terrorist. So all you nice intelligent girls better not go to college and you'd better get married, because you don't want to get killed by some terrorist, do you?

I threw the letter and envelope away, but my mother saw and insisted I show it to her. She read it and proclaimed, "That's a joke!" Whatever that meant. Then she mercilessly pestered me, giving me the third degree, about how I must know who sent it and who did I give my address to?

No, really, Mother, I don't know and I didn't give my address to anybody. Maybe somebody got my address from school records or the phone book or something. She finally accepted reality. She acted like getting such a letter was proof her daughter was popular, instead of the weird-stalker stunt that it was.

I thought that was the end but--anonymous letters exactly like the first one, in envelopes exactly like the first one, kept showing up. Sometimes years would go by and then one would show up again, sometimes two or more arrived fairly close together.

Eleven or twelve years after the first letter showed up, I moved out of the family home. Some time at my new residence had passed, when, to my horror, a letter identical to all the rest showed up at my new address. I could only think of two people who may have known where I lived back in high school and who also had my new address. Both were talented young men from my drama class, who I'd kept up with because I wanted to keep up with what they might be doing in music and theater. I didn't think either one of them was the type to send a letter like that, but the circumstantial evidence made them persons of interest.

I figured there would be no use to ask either guy outright if he sent the letters. Someone who sends letters anonymously for years isn't going to admit it.

So I guessed it was the guy I'd had the most contact with. I decided to play his game. I put the letter in the same size of small envelope, put no return address on it, and mailed it to him. I figured when he received the letter, he'd keep the chain going and send another letter to me. I'd just sit back and wait for the chain to come my way again.

After two or three weeks, no letter had shown up. So I called him. Without admitting I sent such a letter, I questioned him closely enough that I was satisfied he honestly didn't know anything about it.

That left the other guy. I hadn't actually spoken to him in perhaps ten years. Very occasionally I would try and phone him, get his mother, she'd take a message, and he'd never return the call. The last time I called, though, I'd told his mother what my new address was. Circumstantial evidence said he couldn't be bothered to return my phone calls, or drop me an actual note, but he could be bothered to mail me bizarre anonymous chain letters, like some creepy stalker, for years upon years. 

I hoped I'd never receive another such letter but I did. Previously I'd always assumed why bother complaining to the post office, it's an anonymous letter, what good is that going to do. This time, I took the letter and its envelope over to my local post office and told the postmaster I wanted to report an anonymous chain letter. Without a word he took the letter and went back into his office.

I don't know if that complaint made the difference, but I never received another such letter. I was free at last.

Links to "Life After Mother" in Senior Reporter, March 2025-August 2025

 Below please find links and PDF downloads of my monthly "Life After Mother" column, examining estate and probate issues from personal experience, featured in Senior Reporter, for the six months from March 2025 to August 2025.

March 2025:  "Costly Continuing Care Concerns" (p. 38), https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/mar-2025-vol-51-no-3/

PDF download:  https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/issues/senior-reporter-bshields-mar-2025.pdf

April 2025:  "It's "Just" Dementia" (p. 30-38), https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/apr-2025-vol-51-no-4/

PDF download:  https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/issues/senior-reporter-asandler-apr-2025.pdf

May 2025:  "Spring Cleaning" (p. 30), https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/may-2025-vol-51-no-5/

PDF download:  https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/issues/senior-reporter-ldern-may-2025.pdf

June 2025:  "Get Familiar With Online Resources" (p. 30-38), https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/jun-2025-vol-51-no-6/

PDF download:  https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/issues/senior-reporter-hwinkler-jun-2025.pdf

July 2025:  "It's Going to be a Rich Cat" (p. 32-38), https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/jul-2025-vol-51-no-7/

PDF download:  https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/issues/senior-reporter-jmargulies-jul-2025.pdf

August 2025:  "Go to the Gym with your Girlfriends" (p. 32-37), https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/aug-2025-vol-51-no-8/

PDF download:  https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/issues/senior-reporter-rstewart-aug-2025.pdf