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.