Who Are You Going to Kill?

Photo courtesy U.S. Marines in Japan via Wikimedia Commons
 Photographer Dirck Halstead

I've been trying to avoid thinking too harshly about Americans who support Donald Trump for president. I think it's the worst choice this year, but I can kinda understand it.

But some of you, including your candidate, have been making noises like maybe you want to end the American system and replace it with something else. Some of you are talking about violent revolution if this election doesn't give you the results you want. That I fully understand, because by training and nature, I'm sensitive to threats to the republic.

Now I know some of you will disagree with my characterization. It's not about getting the results you want, you'll say. it's about fighting corruption. Or maybe you'll say that you don't want to tear down the American system, you just want to fix it. Whatever. This definitional dissonance doesn't relate to my question. My question is:

Who are you planning to kill?

To My Former Co-Partiers of the GOP

I quit being a Republican in 2012, although the process began long before that.  But when I was an active Republican in the 1990s, I had no problem defending the party's history and platform. I walked a lot of precincts and made a lot of phone calls for GOP candidates, because the party had something to offer. Now look at it.

Seriously, take a good look at it. But first, get past that reflexive deflection you've been conditioned by the conservative media to employ. In fact, try to get rid of all that conditioning you've willfully embraced. Accept, for at least a moment, the idea that maybe Rush Limbaugh has lied to you, or that Fox News doesn't always give you the whole story.

Seriously, Republicans. Take your brain out of the fucking closet and use it for a change. Act like a genuine conservative, a person who tries to preserve the good ideas of the past because preserving good ideas is good for society. You have to be empirical to be that kind of conservative. You have to be honest with yourself if nothing else.

For the love of America, stop and think about what's going on!