My F*ing Explanation

for Sweeper698 and the millions like him who deserve it

Yet again I came across this viral video on yet another Facebook friend’s timeline, and it’s calling me to respond. Because what Sweeper698 says apparently resonates with very many distraught Kamala Harris voters (judging by all the comments and shares) who feel themselves unable to comprehend the meaning of her loss. Or rather, the meaning of Donald Trump’s win. They are terrified and/or hopeless for the future, reeling in the realization that the majority of their fellow Americans are bigots and fascists, or at the very least selfish morons. In fact, “He speaks for me” is a common intro from those sharing this video to their social media. (To watch, which I recommend, click on the pic or here.)

@sweeper698Its been a rough week. And I couldn’t figure out why I was SO beartbroken and disappointed over the #election2024 . But now I know. #election2024🇺🇸 #trump

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So. While I’m not precisely the straight white Christian ethno-nationalist male Sweeper seems to believe elected Trump, I do match the first three of those handy labels he hints at and I’m happy to give that “f-ing explanation” he thinks he deserves (if he can stand to hear it from someone who doesn’t fit the exact stereotype he’s addressing). Not that I think it will help, because his mind sounds made up; the taproot of his logic is deeply embedded. His seems a rhetorical demand, not an earnest one. Still, I’ll respond because there may be similarly reeling readers with actual curiosity who might share his concerns but not his apparent predisposition. To that end I’ve transcribed most of his lecture, and for simplicity sake I’ll interject my replies in bold. Here we go.

The reason I’m so heartbroken, destroyed, and absolutely disgusted with the results of this election is that it invalidates everything I have ever been taught about how I should live my life. And everything I have tried to teach my kids.

Okay, wait. Just to be sure we’re on the same planet—I mean, page: We did not just hold an election for God last week, correct? The votes we all cast were for a four year term for Chief Executive of the United States . . . right?

So it’s an absolute betrayal to realize, at 57 years of age, that when it comes really down to it, over half of this country really doesn’t value the notions of being kind, being generous, loving your neighbor, being accepting, having empathy, showing understanding, being truthful, being ethical in business, being sensible and level-headed. Not being a bully, not being selfish, and not being a total a**hole.

To borrow my favorite JD line: Do you HEAR yourself? You actually believe that over half the country doesn’t value being kind, generous, loving, or accepting, doesn’t value showing empathy or understanding, being truthful, ethical, sensible, or level-headed . . . all because they voted for a candidate you despise? And towards whose supporters you’re now showing no kindness, no generosity, no love, no acceptance, no empathy, and zero understanding? Is your concept of being truthful, ethical, and sensible actually to blanket-brand as immoral or amoral everyone who doesn’t vote from your priorities and understanding of facts? In your moral matrix, does “not being a bully, not being selfish, and not being a total a**hole” include not impugning the character of everyone who disagrees with your assessment of America’s interests and your choice of applicant to address them?

And because I’ve been taught these things my entire life, it’s really easy for me to see that Donald Trump is a vile and despicable human being. He exhibits every thing I have been taught to set my sights against in order to be a good, functioning member of society.

“Vile and despicable” signal a pretty entrenched viewpoint. But for anyone who feels a wisp of wondering, a crack of curiosity opening about how anyone could possibly vote for the “vile and despicable” candidate and still consider themselves a good, functioning member of society, read this, or watch this:

But now, over half our country supports this person and believes that he’s the one who’s going to make America great. Well, hey, here’s a secret: someone who has worked so hard at sowing discord is never going to do anything to unite us. That’s his big lie. Because he doesn’t benefit from Americans coming together. He, and all the Tucker Carlsons and Alex Jones out there, they profit from the rage that they’re able to manufacture.

“Manufacture” is the giveaway that you missed entirely what actually happened, missed how Trump gained support from so many voters. You seem to believe the anger, the dissatisfaction that inspired Americans to reject Team Blue’s agenda wholesale has been trumped-up (with a capital T)—craftily crafted with no basis in reality. No wonder you’re feeling blindsided. You don’t see that you’re missing all the centerpieces of the puzzle: the myriad ways in which the Lefts’ ideology has been endured as a suffocating harmful religion—a cult, even—by large swathes of the electorate, including many lifelong liberals. It seems you live so contentedly in the glow of blue gaslight that you entirely missed the steady leak of voters leaving your party—the leak that burgeoned into a river wide and strong enough to reshape the political landscape.

In fact, the narrative you’ve trusted about who Trump is (Orange Hitler) and who votes for him (Neo-Nazis and idiots) has itself been so craftily crafted that you seem unable to recognize the reality that Trump has already benefited from the most unlikely of coalitions. Far from proving himself incapable of bringing Americans together, Trump’s modern-era landslide—his decisive red sweep amidst a profoundly divided electorate—is a testament to his ability to hear and address real concerns across a wide spectrum.

Perhaps you don’t realize that in addition to his MAGA base, Trump pulled significant margins from all racial minorities, handily winning Hispanic men and Native Americans, even doubling his support with black men; in fact, as he gained with racial minorities he actually lost a bit of ground with whites. He found voters across all age groups and reclaimed many moderates as well as a healthy share of suburban moms. He gained back 2020 losses from the rural electorate and working class, and notably found vocal champions among disaffected lifelong Democrats from Silicon Valley to Wall Street. Podcasters of all backgrounds took up and amplified the MAHA/MAGA message of restoring America’s health, her borders, her Dream, and of holding the lawless and corrupt (finally) accountable. The fact that you perceive only a liar sowing discord, that you can’t even see the large coalition unified by Trump’s “divisive rhetoric,” explains your anguish: you bought into a narrative forwarded by a legacy media too out of touch with average Americans to even recognize the unreality of their own reports.

So don’t tell me “it’s okay if we disagree” as if this is akin to our individual preferences for wine, or toilet paper. This is not a simple disagreement. This is you telling me that the values I’ve held dear my entire life have no meaning or place in the real world. This is you telling me that I should be shrewd, deceptive, cruel, and intolerant. This is you telling me that the type of person you really admire and look up to is a rich, entitled, narcissistic, criminally convicted, p***y-grabber. [. . .]

Actually, this would be me telling you that those values you’ve held dear your entire life will accrue deeper meaning by this unexpected opportunity to stretch into them, to rise to their painful challenge. This is me telling you that you can cultivate humility, curiosity, forgiveness, and tolerance. This is me telling you that you have no idea what type of person any Trump voter really admires, much less why our ballots went to him, so the fact that he lives at his cartoonish worst in your head does not mean he lives at all in ours, much less as a role model.

But now it’s all “Let’s make America great again.” And what I’d like to know is, what specific time in American history are you talking about? What year, exactly? Because for a lot of folks, this right now, this current time in American history, is the greatest. And you know that. And for some reason you don’t like it. It’s like this crazy idea that giving certain rights to someone else somehow takes some of yours away. [. . .]

So if I’m hearing you right, merely knowing that some people view our current era as America’s greatest means any longing anyone feels for a different time is really a closet yearning to live as a bigot? Because there’s not a single thing worthy of nostalgia in America’s past, just the ignorance and hate of prejudice and discrimination. Okay then.

But here’s where your impulse to distribute rights like candy actually is crazy. When you reduce the experience of being female to an “identity,” diminish what it means to be a girl or woman to an abstraction (or a costume) and give the right of recognition to any male who claims it, then you absolutely ARE taking away rights. In fact, you are demolishing the hard-won legal framework that protects the rights of females as a class, that helps mitigate the inherent risks and biological disadvantages of our embodied lives. Risks and disadvantages, let’s recall, that humans throughout all of history have known to be real in relation to men. Until yesterday, when TQ+ male billionaires and utopian Democrats began marketing the fictions that sex isn’t binary, biology doesn’t matter, and predatory men don’t wear dresses. People who think like you, however well-meaning, put girls and women at avoidably higher risks for physical harm and sexual trauma and take away our deserved rights to compete and achieve on safe and fair playing fields. Growing numbers of gays and lesbians, too, are objecting to the harms, particularly to children, being promoted by the nouveau gender fairytale—though I’ll let them speak for themselves. But please, spare us your pious posturing against sex-based rights.

And don’t tell me: “Oh, don’t be stupid. You’re getting it all wrong. It’s really about none of that. It’s really about the economy.” As if that excuses the behavior? You’re willing to overlook all the other fascist rhetoric.

Well, you are getting it all wrong, but not because it’s “really about the economy” (though for some people it really is). What you’re getting wrong is your certainty that it’s all rooted in bigotry and amoral admiration of Trump as a fascist. Speaking of, I’ve seen far more actual fascistic policies emerge from the Biden/Harris administration in their committed pursuit of censorship, lawfare, and forced medical experiments on Americans than from any substantive action by Orange Hitler.

Because all that’s doing is showing your wives, and your daughters, and minorities, and LGBTQ and other marginalized groups, that you’re completely willing to throw them under the bus as long as you can save five cents a gallon on gasoline. Did your stock portfolio get a bump yesterday? Well, good for you. Maybe you can sit offshore on your new boat and watch this country burn to the ground.

For the record, I am a wife and daughter and I’m not under a bus. I also know young women, minorities, lesbians, and gays who are celebrating Trump’s victory, also not under buses. In other words, this is where your blindness really reveals itself. I can’t help wondering if you genuinely believe that Trump won because white men with portfolios and boats voted as a block to save themselves a few cents at the gas pump. Because here’s the thing: I know plenty of white men (dare I admit that most the males I know are white), but I can count on one hand—possibly two—the number who own the kind of boat from which you might restfully watch the country burn. So I’m having a hard time picturing this demographic being to blame for the large red wave that surged Trump back into the Oval Office.

I’ll also mention that what struck me most about this part of your lecture was your contempt. The dripping scorn with which you sneer at the possibility that the price of gas could carry real weight in any good person’s moral calculus . . . as you sit perched on a comfortable looking sofa in a nicely furnished room, appearing . . . shall we say . . . financially unburdened by what has been. For all your impassioned defense of “the marginalized” it’s a bit stunning that you seem so profoundly unmoved by the reality of very many Americans who are profoundly burdened by the abysmal failure of Bidenomics. (Or was it success . . .? One does wonder.)

The reality is that as a country we had the opportunity to take the high road, to stand for something higher than our basest instincts, to stand for equality and fairness, to stand for the overall good of everyone. But over half of y’all kept us from taking it. And the whole world was watching. And you know who else was watching? Your non-white friends, your non-straight friends, your wives, your kids, your daughters.

Again, you have presumed Trump’s return to the White House is thanks to the selfishness of straight white males who don’t care about anyone or anything except (apparently) their stock portfolios and luxury purchasing power. Yet I happen to know there are plenty of non-white, non-straight Americans, plenty of wives, kids, and daughters who not only are happy with the election results, they happily helped make them happen. How do all of them fit into your math and outrage?

As to your apparent embarrassment about the whole world watching, I will note that your perception of events so perfectly mirrors the corporate media narrative that I wonder how aware you are of the global populist revolt underway. Legacy outlets have studiously avoided covering the true scope, scale, and persistence of the anti-Globalist resistance, the outright uprisings occurring with regularity since Brexit and Trump 1.0, accelerating since the pandemic. Which means you’re likely not aware that myriads of those watching around the world were most certainly holding their breath, praying, and are now near-weeping in celebration. Because the masses being threatened or harmed by the relentless hegemony of globalist agendas have understandably viewed our election as the world’s last best hope for keeping liberty, common sense, and democracy alive. On November 5th 2024 the little guy actually won, and relief for that fact is racing around the globe.

So to anyone who actually does claim to value those higher ideals . . . you know, the ones I mentioned earlier, the ones we were taught as kids in Sunday School—yeah, Christians, remember Sunday School?—if you claim to hold any of those same values but are at the very same time enamored with Trump and perfectly pleased with the outcome of the election, me, and millions like me, deserve a f*ing explanation.

Well, I do claim to value those higher ideals taught by my Christian faith, and I hold them so dear that I try to live them consciously each day. At the very same time I’m also quite pleased with the outcome of the election—not perfectly, since I would have preferred wider red margins in Congress—but close enough. Yet I am not enamored with Trump. For me, he was the means to my end of electing Bobby’s agenda—Make America Healthy Again. Perhaps if the corrupt Democrat leadership had allowed for a legitimate primary contest early on, you and I would be celebrating a Kennedy 2.0 administration today, instead of debating the meaning of Trump 2.0. But karma occurred (as it always does) and here we are.

So. There’s your f*ing explanation. I’ll pray you find your faith and hope again, and with them an ounce of curiosity, a cup of forgiveness, and plateful of peace. And ditto that to the millions like you. 🕊🙏🏻