Opinion: Gassing Moms And Vets Does Not Win Elections

With his support in free fall, Donald Trump decided the best way to win over “suburban house wives” was to scare them with images of his gestapo  gassing the wall of  moms, assaulting vets and disappearing peaceful protestors.

Seriously, who knows if Trump did it to get film for a video ad, send federal agents to wage war on democratic governments by Democrats on or to distract from the distraction that failed to distract from the previous crises that we can’t remember anymore.

After 3 years of Trump, we know a few things about how his mind works. He relies on lies, deflection, projection and interruption from problems that can be solved if only he wasn’t Donald Trump.

While there is nothing that he could do to impress me, there are people in America who wanted his presidency to succeed and would still support him if only he had handled the corona virus better.

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He tried throwing that problem to the states, which inevitably meant a patchwork of policies ranging from relying on happy talk and magic maga beans to actually following the science.

States that followed the science are seeing their numbers go the right way. However, governors like Florida’s one time maga onesie salesman, Ron DeSantis, are seeing the numbers turn their happy talk and smiles upside down. Sadly, states like Florida and Texas are at the point where doctors will have to deny treatment to Covid patients and send them home to die.

All of this is happening as a moratorium on evictions  and financial relief for millions getting 600 dollars,  expire because homelessness and destitution are exactly what you need to stop the deadly corona virus.

But that’s okay, Republicans will spend the weekend at home then find new ways to steal for Trump and his friends next week.

None of this is the winning that Trump promised his followers. If not for the fact that many voted for a hardcore racist, misogynistic and corrupt dictator because they figured that was somehow better than electing a woman, I’d almost feel sorry for people who have been in for a cruel and merciless fall over the past months. One can feel the pain of any parent who lost a child be it to a school shooting or covid – because both were preventable if only Republicans made America first again.

Fast forward to today, as we feel the sort of fear I remember feeling as a child when passing from Western Europe to a Soviet Satellite. It was that same sinking feeling that came when seeing images of Tiananmen Square, Pinochet’s Chile, or Milosevic’s Yugoslavia. All cases of alleged strong men using violence to crush their own people in the name of holding on to power.

I hated that feeling regardless of where it happened or when and I was determined to never experience it again. But it has.

Trump made us a common failing state where disease, poverty and propaganda replace hope, dreams and science.

The cruelest irony is living it in the country that once led the free world and knowing it’s because white angry white guys figured this was how they’d own the liberals.

Here’s a news flash for those guys: I’m one of those liberals you wanted to “own”. Life is very different than it was before your loser president did everything he could to spread the corona virus. But, we can still get the things we need. We have to stay inside, socially distance and wear masks when we’re out and encountering other people. It’s different but we are managing. We adjust and make changes we don’t like because we have to.

We still live with the same fear everyone does about catching the disease or about someone we love catching it. But we know that we’re doing everything we can to prevent it and we know they are too.

It could mean we’ll get it because even though we’re doing all the things that science has told us, we also know that because this is a new virus; science is still learning about it. We’re like Dr. Fauci, whose views on wearing masks changed as he learned more about the corona virus.

Trump and his base ended up owning themselves. The liberal states and those “Democrat run” cities are the ones who followed the science. Even with that, there are moments when the number of people infected goes up and the deaths go up.

But congratulations, angry white guys in Trump’s base, because you wanted to own us, your friends and family are being infected and dying. Because you wanted to own us, people you love will be sent home to die a cruel death – that amounts to drowning in fluid from their lungs.

In the name of “owning the libs” Trump lost the big show his re-nomination could have been. He was forced into cancelling the Jacksonville part of his convention. Even the mayor who groveled to the best of his ability couldn’t save it.

There’s no sports, no school, no economic recovery.

Instead of “owning” liberals, Trump’s base owns him – a man whose presidency is such a colossal failure that he’s reduced to bragging about how well he did on a dementia screening test.

My conscience is clean and even if I should catch the virus tomorrow, I’ll know I lived my best life.

Can his base say the same?

So here we are, Trump is gassing moms to scare a fictional group of “suburban housewives” into voting for him.  

He’s banking on women being okay with moms being gassed if it means keeping their neighborhoods and property values lily white. That’s why aside from gassing women peacefully protesting, Trump decided to get rid of a fair housing rule  he never really liked since the Nixon administration sued him over his racist housing policies.

And Trump is showing his love for vets by assaulting them, breaking bones and making bruises, while calling them anarchists. Everyone knows that’s a sure-fire way to win votes.

While we are in our darkest moment, my faith remains in the people that I know are more interested in doing the right thing for all of American. It’s about crawling out of this deep hole that Trump made and seeing the sunlight of America again – after four years in the darkness of Magastan.

Adalia Woodbury

Former contributor.