Exploiting the Archives Week: I Voted for Donald Trump and Now I Regret It

Nathan Rabin's Happy Place (or rather, Nathan Rabin) is taking the week between Christmas and New Year's Off to prevent him from going insane (seriously, dude is on the edge! Writing about himself in the third person and everything). So the next week will be Exploiting the Archives week, where we'll be running some of our favorite pieces from the year that was.

Sure, I realized that Trump had no governmental or relevant experience when I voted for him. I also knew he was dangerously unqualified and a threat to the existence of life on earth if given the nuclear codes. But he promised to lower taxes and Hilary Clinton seemed annoying. No, strike that, Hillary Clinton seemed super-annoying. She reminded me of my ex-wife and when I looked at her all I could think was, “nag, nag, nag.” 

Also, wasn't it fun when Trump made fun of Jeb Bush during the debates? Surely the entertainment value of a chief executive who is constantly saying, doing and tweeting bizarre and self-destructive things solely to get attention is worth the possibility that his administration will be a black mark upon our nation it would decades to recover from, right?  

I was willing to accept Trump being racist for the sake of a more robust economy. Heck, I was even willing to accept Trump being super-racist. But now that Trump is behaving like a super-duper extra bonus racist, defending Confederate brutality and emboldening the Alt-Right and Neo-Nazis with clear dog whistles that he’s with them, I must draw a line. A line that makes me look good, or at least as good as possible and largely absolves me of guilt for voting for Donald Trump. 

You broke Joe Walsh's heart, you monster! Hopefully the other Eagles are handling it better. 

How was I to know that Donald Trump would attempt to do as President the awful things he promised to do during his campaign? I thought he was just doing some crazy performance art thing, like Andy Kaufman or Pat Paulsen. How could I have foreseen a cause and effect relationship between the things Trump said he’d do, and his subsequent actions? What am I, Nostradamus, that I can foresee the future of Trump’s administration solely on the basis of decades upon decades of Trump’s words and actions?

Oh sure, if you only look at Trump’s actions and words, he looks terrible. But if you willfully pretend that he’s some manner of truth-telling maverick, he looks a lot better. I’m very disappointed that Trump has behaved, as President, in a manner one hundred percent consistent with his rhetoric, and rages, and perpetually shifting, eternally mercurial moods instead of fulfilling my fantasy conception of him as a righteous outsider willing to blow up a corrupt establishment for the sake of his populist worshippers. 

And also voting for Donald Trump

But now Trump gone too far or something and apparently it’s starting to reflect badly on me, even in my own self-image, and that’s when I draw a line. I gave Trump a chance during his many years of saying egregiously racist, hateful, sexist and untrue things, almost compulsively, as well as behaving in plain sight as a vicious misogynist, definite sexual predator and possible/probable/definite sexual harasser and rapist but now I guess he’s too extreme? Like with the last two tweets or statements or whatever? 

I, like a lot of other Trump voters, naturally assumed that once Trump assumed office, he’d evolve instantly from a rodeo clown of a “politician” continually violating even extreme social norms with his brazen, hateful and abusive behavior to a sensible leader with a clear-cut vision for our future, more than willing to put in the hard work and accept the compromise endemic in running a country as huge, complicated and powerful as the United States. I am shocked to discover otherwise. 

Yes, you can only do so many unforgivable things before your supporters turn on you. For me and Donald Trump that number is in the low 500s but when Trump spoke of anti-Nazi protestors and Nazi thugs as two sides of the same coin and extensively praised Confederate figures synonymous with racism, treason and treachery, I finally had to say “enough’s enough.” Does that make me a hero? Yes. It does.  

Does three time Donald Trump co-star Whoopi Golberg regret anything she's done, personally or professionally? Probably not. 

So I’m now using my unquestionable, unimpeachable moral authority (no pun intended!) to ask Trump to resign so that the short national nightmare of his Presidency will finally be over and we can finally have leaders worthy of honest, principled and not at all hypocritical voters like myself. 

Maybe Sarah Palin will run? 

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