As the pool of white tears begins to flood from the influx of supporters of our newly elected authoritarian who are expressing regret over their votes, allow me to extend the following invitation to one and all: Drown.
Recently, USA Today published an op-ed entitled, “I Voted for Trump, Not Against Planned Parenthood.” In it, Melody Forbes laments that she voted for Honeysuckle Lenin “because I wanted to see change in our country.” Yet Forbes complains about the prospect of the man she voted for lending support to any legislation championed by the likes of Vice President Mike Pence and other Republicans in Congress who have long sought to dismantle women’s access to health care.
“It doesn’t make any sense for Trump, who said he would defend the American people from politics as usual, to sign a bill like this,” Forbes writes. Forbes then spends time relaying facts about Planned Parenthood, as if anyone on that side of the political aisle cares about reasons to consider women’s health, while continuing to write other delusional statements such as, “I did not vote to send him to the White House to take away health care from people struggling to get by.”
That is exactly what Forbes voted for, as is pretty evident to anyone who paid real attention to the campaign behind easily and often refutable rhetoric. Honeysuckle Lenin did indeed defend Planned Parenthood to some extent, noting last year during a Republican presidential debate that it has helped women. However, he said this while still promising to defund it because he claims to be pro-life. Meanwhile, even if the man did promise not to defund Planned Parenthood, anyone who was paying attention to the various stories about him curbing contractors’ pay would find it easy to reckon with the reality that the man’s promises mean nothing.
Still, Forbes has lent her voice to a growing chorus of folks who feign bemusement over a president who’s behaving the same way he did as a candidate.
When the then president-elect pulled back on his promise to build a “big, beautiful wall” along the Mexican border, numerous suckers took to Twitter to complain that a long-proven liar had misled them. The same has happened with respect to the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which many voters ignorantly assumed was different from Obamacare.
As for his Cabinet picks, the man who swore that he would “drain the swamp” has appointed various billionaires and village idiots to assemble what historians have labeled the richest Cabinet in U.S. history. This Cabinet would include the likes of former WWE executive Linda McMahon, who on Tuesday spoke before the Senate in hopes of becoming the next leader of the Small Business Administration. Surely, her being a top Trump donor had absolutely nothing to do with this two-time failed senatorial candidate—whose greatest achievement, arguably, is introducing me to “Macho Man” Randy Savage—being nominated for that position.
Such moves have not yielded “Oooh yeah! Dig it!”-like expressions of glee about the Colby-Jack Führer. Indeed, the outpouring of hurt, dismay and anger gained so much steam so sharply that it has since given way to a Tumblr, Trumpgrets, that tracks the almost comical levels of bitching and moaning, and other musings, from regretful voters.
As this new administration continues to embarrass itself and drag the nation down with it, there will be more folks who will publicize their remorse over their vote. Such is their right, but I’d like to think I speak on behalf of the millions of marginalized people who will suffer the most under the tyrannical reign of a racist, sexist, xenophobic, narcissistic, pathological liar when I say, fuck all y’all. In fact, run headfirst into a wall. It’s not as if any of you appear to use your heads much, anyway.
We’re barely into this new presidency, and already a bunch of white people are taking to the op-ed pages, tweets, Facebook statuses and, in some cases, TV to whine about their choices. They want pity and/or to be absolved of guilt for having voted for someone who at every opportunity proved himself to be awful. They do so without being honest in acknowledging that they wanted to “Make America great again” with the help of a peachy-colored pussy grabber who calls Mexicans rapists; who wants a Muslim registry, if not a flat-out ban of any Muslims entering the country; who has no respect for women; and who has previously proved to be unkind to black people.
If you cannot own the fact that you either engaged in racism or turned a blind eye to it as you express remorse for having voted for our new president, then you are not owning up to what really vexes you. And what really bothers these white people is that Honeysuckle Lenin is treating them like the rest of us. That’s what irks them.
To that end, to hell with them and their burgeoning pity party. The only folks who deserve pity are those who will suffer because of their votes. As for those who voted for him, again, drown in a pool of your tears.