Stop Trusting Republicans

Stop trusting Republicans. All of them.

Stop giving Donald Trump anything: Trust, chances, the benefit of the doubt, credit for "pivoting," generous interpretations of his worst instincts and vilest actions.


Stop believing that Mike Pence is any better than his execrable boss. The only difference between them is that Pence uses more civil language to express his contempts and tyranny — which doesn't make him a better person and would not make him a better president; it only makes him a more effective politician. It makes him a snake instead of an ass.


Stop praising the "moderate" Republicans whose so-called moderation is only as valuable as whatever screentime it garners their preening egos.


Stop imagining there is a "different" kind of Republican. There isn't. Not anymore.

Anyone who continues to call themselves a Republican and who continues to support Republican candidates on any level and who continues to vote Republican when the head of the party, and indeed the party's inevitable endgame, is a white supremacist, a confessed serial sexual abuser, a rank authoritarian, and a compulsive liar who is actively seeking to undermine the nation's democratic systems and norms, is not a "different" kind of Republican. They are abettors. They are enablers. They are apologists. They empower Trump's abuses of power. There is no neutral.

Stop giving Republicans an ounce of good faith, ever. They don't think people are entitled to food, or clean water, or healthcare, or homes, or jobs with a liveable wage. So they aren't entitled to good faith.

They want to destroy what we value.

They have made that clear.

Stop trusting them.

And when you are admonished to trust some Republican or other, or scolded for failing to trust some Republican or other, or shamed by someone who accuses you of judging, of profiling, of writing off millions of people, of being "the reason" why Trump won; when you are cajoled or criticized but you know deep down that there is no good, no benefit, no decency, no safety in trusting Republicans, listen to that urgent twist in your gut telling you what you know, that Republicans cannot be trusted, not anymore, and instead trust yourself.

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