There seem to be two main types of Trump supporters: (1) those who are okay with grabbing women by the crotch, imprisoning babies, promoting vigilanteism, and blackmailing our European allies as long as no unborn children are harmed, their IRAs prosper, and we never stop burning fossil fuels; and (2) the ones who aren’t very nice.
This latter group is the one who are now touring the country with the ubiquitous American flag and the iniquitous red hat (sorry, I wanted a rhyme for ubiquitous) harassing public servants who are probably earning minimum wage counting ballots.
These not-so-nice Trump supporters, many of them brandishing long rifles (Freud would have a field day) spend their hours screaming at the poll workers to count the ballots, something these poll workers could probably do more efficiently were it not for the Trump supporters and their long rifles screaming at them to count the ballots—which is, in case we've forgotten, why they're there. Ironically, while they're screaming live, Trump is SCREAMING on Twitter to stop counting the ballots. No wonder his followers are confused...well, more confused. (In Arizona these poll workers, when their shifts have ended, are being escorted to their vehicles by law-enforcement officials as a hedge against harassment or worse...from the not-so-nice Trump supporters.)
People like this are nothing new in this country—there have always been protesters for more reasons than we can count. Even so, the cynicism of these men and women is something special—these gangs genuinely believe that the only reason people would ever do the right thing is that they’re being watched—watched when they register, watched when they sign in, watched when they fill out the ballot. To Trumpsters' way of thinking, without the threat of punishment, anarchy would prevail. They didn’t learn that from Trump—that’s their ethos, their overriding principle—but Trump has provided (im)moral support, proved to them that it works, that being amoral and unethical is not a weakness at all, but political ammunition to be used to gain the highest office in the land, one which Trump may very well retain.
And if he loses, these men waving their guns in public (O! Freud, where art thou?) aren’t going away. They’re part of our landscape now, like landfills, junkyards, and abandoned strip mines. Eventually another one of these self-appointed terrorists will kill somebody, much the way Kyle Rittenhouse did in Kenosha not long ago. No matter who wins the presidency, Trump’s imprimatur on American terrorists is a lasting imprint, or maybe a lasting stigma. With him providing a moral compass without a magnetic needle, north will be wherever he says it is...as it has been throughout his term.
As Americans we take a certain pride in the fact that our country was forged in revolution—we lionize Paine and Revere, and honor the memory of Lexington and Concord. But our new armed revolutionaries lack the higher purpose of the originals: they fight for a man (and one who cares nothing about them) whereas their forebears fought for an ideal.
Our only hope is that the crotch-grabbing, baby-torturing, blackmailing terrorist wing of Trumpism predominates. At least they’re unarmed.
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