I Refuse to Tolerate Donald Trump and His Supporters
We’ve Worked Too Hard to Allow Trump’s Racism, Xenophobia, and Bigotry Rule the Day
On Thursday night, Donald Trump gave his nomination acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. It was incredibly dark and scary, and it freaked the hell out of me. It should scare the crap out of you, too.
In response, I posted this on Facebook:
I’ve been really reluctant to jump on the Trump/Hitler comparison bandwagon because I’m a firm believer that certain historical events and people are simply incomparable. Listening to Trump’s speech tonight is making me strongly – very strongly – reconsider that position.
Let me be as clear as possible: If you plan on voting for Trump, there is no place for you in my life. You are shameful and represent the worst of humanity. Trump is the absolute worst of what we have to offer, and if you endorse his ideas and behavior you will be complicit in the darkness that is to come.
We have the power to stop this, but it’s going to take every single one of us. How will you feel when your grandkids ask you why no one stood up to the evil?
I’m still reluctant to go full-out with the Trump/Hitler comparison. There are, without a doubt, echoes of Hitler in Trump – it doesn’t take more than a minute or two of paying attention to figure out – but I hope and pray we never get to the point where the comparison becomes wholly accurate.
What I find most surprising, though, wasn’t that I was being hyperbolic (I was, because a little bit of drama makes a point get across a little bit faster), but that I was accused of being intolerant and “judgmental of folks whose political opinion differs from†mine.Â
You know what? Yes. I am, and I was. I am absolutely intolerant of Trump and his supporters.Â
Maybe a few months ago I wouldn’t have said this, but after everything that’s happened with his speeches and the disguting Republican platform, I’m done. I’m proud to be intolerant.Â
I’m proud to be intolerant of racism.
I’m proud to be intolerant of anti-Semitism.
I’m proud to be intolerant of misogyny.
I’m proud to be intolerant of Islamaphobia.
I’m proud to be intolerant of homophobia.
I’m proud to be intolerant of transphobia.
I’m proud to be intolerant of xenophobia.
In any other situation I would agree with one commenter who said that a vote for a certain canddiate doesn’t mean an endorsement of their entire platform. There are certainly candidates I’m not 100% in line with but whom I proudly support anyway. I still have yet to find The Perfect Candidate. That’s how it works most of the time, and I know it’s the best we can do, all things considered.
With Trump, however, his offensive qualities so outweigh anything reasonable he may have said at one point by such a large margin I felt like a fool just trying to write this paragraph at all. At this point it’s absolutely impossible to separate out the candidacy from the candidate – or from the party. There is simply no argument to be made for voting for Trump that doesn’t make you a terrible person.
I understand that a polite society requires us all to live and interact with people who often hold views that directly contrast with ours. Most of the time, I can handle tolerance. Tolerance, at its most basic level, simply requires that we don’t get in someone else’s way, even if we absolutely hate them and everything they stand for. Tolerance doesn’t mean approval, it just means I’m not going to try to get you arrested or harm you. It’s the absolutely lowest level of human decency.
Being forced to confront our own biases and learn from others is what usually makes our society so great – but it doesn’t apply here. Tolerance doesn’t apply here. The kind of hate that Trump spews affects us all. It creates a world of fear and disgust and I refuse to allow our country to go down that road.Â
I refuse to allow bigotry to rule the day. I refuse to allow the ideals of inequality, xenophobia, and outright fear to become our country’s guiding principals. We’re so much better than that. We’ve worked far too hard for that to happen.Â
And if that means that certain people take themselves out of my life because they cannot abandon their bigotry? Well, then good riddance, because they were never really welcome in my life in the first place.
Â
Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license
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Robbie Medwed is an Atlanta-based LGBTQ activist and educator. His column appears here weekly. Follow him on Twitter: @rjmedwed
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President Donald Trump, who has refused to order his ICE agents to stop wearing masks on America’s streets, is asking them to not wear masks while being deployed at America’s airports, amid a TSA crisis critics are now blaming him for. But the president is now threatening that if ICE is not sufficient at the airports, he will “bring in the National Guard.”
Saying he is a “big proponent” of ICE wearing masks while doing their work, he said, dealing with “hardened criminals,” Trump said he would “greatly appreciate” no masks at the airports.
Some noted that the masks supposedly are to prevent ICE agents from being doxxed — having their photos taken and their identities revealed. This move would effectively allow them to be photographed.
“Trump appears sensitive to the optics of masked ICE agents in airports,” wrote Politico senior legal affairs correspondent Kyle Cheney. “This is notable as a legal matter because DHS has argued in court (though judges are skeptical) that the mask policy is optional for each agent to decide based on personal/local safety concern.”
Trump also said that ICE “loves” that they will be able to arrest undocumented immigrants at the airports.
Some critics noted that Trump’s statement was a request, not an order.
Journalist Sophia A. Nelson called the no masks move “Progress.”
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Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump has signaled to Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune that he will not sign legislation that would pay TSA workers and all other DHS agencies except ICE — a Democratic proposal that Thune is now recommending — until his controversial SAVE America voter ID and citizenship legislation is passed.
“Senate Majority Leader John Thune approached Trump with a new proposal on Sunday — at the urging of his Senate Republican colleagues and even some White House aides,” Punchbowl News reported on Monday. “Thune told Trump that Senate Republicans would support funding all of DHS except ICE, the agency at the center of the bitter partisan dispute over Trump’s immigration crackdown, according to senators and aides.”
“Trump said no, according to multiple sources,” Punchbowl News added. “The president wants Republicans to stay in D.C. and keep fighting with Democrats over DHS funding and the SAVE America Act, the GOP’s voter ID and proof-of-citizenship bill.”
Calling Punchbowl’s report “pretty significant,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein said, “that more or less puts Trump now on the hook for the TSA funding lapse. “Trump also went further in a phone call with News Nation D.C. correspondent Hannah Brandt on Sunday, saying he’s willing to let TSA workers go without paychecks for “as long as it takes.”
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Brandt reported that Trump told her that Democrats want to make a deal on DHS funding but he doesn’t “think any deal should be made on this until they approve” his SAVE America bill.
Trump told Brandt he was prepared to have ICE agents deployed to airports, “For as long as it takes.”
She then asked, “Some lawmakers are saying they should just fund TSA while they negotiate on DHS. What do you think about that?”
Trump said, “Now that I did this the Democrats want to make a deal. And I don’t think any deal should be made on this until they approve SAVE America. Ok, so you have a scoop.”
In a Truth Social post on Sunday night, Trump called passing the SAVE Act “far more important than anything else we are doing in the Senate.”
Critics slammed the president.
“So just to be entirely clear Trump wouldn’t even sign a DHS bill. He’s holding your air travel hostage for the SAVE Act,” wrote former Biden Domestic Policy Council director Neera Tanden.
“So there you go, it’s Trump holding TSA/DHS funding hostages telling Republicans to vote it down unless he gets the SAVE Act first,” said Professor and policy consultant Adam Cochran. “Trump doesn’t care about the safety of Americans. He just wants his bill to help him steal the midterms.”
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Image via Reuters
A top Trump official says global power alliances are shifting, observing that nations closest to Russia are now increasingly aligned with President Donald Trump’s interests.
Fox News host Martha MacCallum told Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum that she had spoken with President Trump earlier Friday, “and he basically said that Japan is a better ally to the United States than NATO, which, when you look at the big picture in history, is a pretty stunning statement.”
She also asked the secretary, “do you think that our orientation, in terms of our alliances, is changing?”
“Well, clearly, it is,” Burgum replied.
“What we might consider our traditional allies from Europe have been less than reliable,” he said, “and from the time that we’ve spent working with those folks in Eastern Europe, the closer they are to Russia, the more aligned they are with President Trump, and the more … aligned they are on energy policy.”
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Offering Japan as an example, Burgum said that nation “is 120 million people living in the size of an area of North Dakota, and they’ve got complete dependence on foreign energy. They want to buy energy from the United States.”
He explained that it takes eight days by ship from Anchorage to Tokyo, as opposed to 30 days from the Middle East.
“People are desperate to have the stronger relationship with the United States right now on energy,” he claimed.
President Trump’s policies are “absolutely working to build alliances around the world,” Burgum said.
MacCallum noted that “the alliance seems to be the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Japan have a good relationship with us as well right now, and a lot of repair needed in Europe.”
Burgum: What we might consider our traditional allies from Europe have been less than reliable. The closer they are to Russia, the more aligned they are with President Trump. pic.twitter.com/GUENLTlSHo
— Acyn (@Acyn) March 20, 2026
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Image via Reuters
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