Let me say it again for the people in the cheap seats: I don’t give a damn about Donald Trump. Not a single molecule of my being is interested in his daily diet of McNuggets, the awkward orange glow of his tanning bed addiction, or the bizarre way he insists on pronouncing “China” like he’s casting a spell from a Disney villain audition.
The man himself is background noise with indictments. A carnival barker who accidentally won the rigged carnival. He is a reality TV rerun, the kind you skip past when you’re too hungover to reach the remote.
What does interest me—what unsettles me to the point of rage—is not Trump. It’s his supporters.
Because the terrifying truth is this: Trump alone is a punchline. Trump with millions of blind, rabid supporters is a movement. And movements change history. They erode institutions. They strip away dignity. They turn democracy into a cult rally.
Trump isn’t the disease. He’s the symptom. The virus is the millions of people who worship him.
The Hypocrisy Olympics
Let’s start with the sheer audacity of their hypocrisy.
These are the same people who lost their collective minds over Bill Clinton’s blowjob. Do you remember that moral panic? The hand-wringing about “family values”? The endless pearl-clutching about how the sanctity of the Oval Office had been violated by one consensual act of oral sex? They built entire careers—pastors, politicians, pundits—on their righteous outrage.
Fast forward to Trump. Porn star affairs. Hush money payments. A man who bragged about groping women without consent. And suddenly the choir goes silent. Suddenly adultery is fine, as long as the tax cuts keep coming.
Apparently, sin isn’t sin if your party does it. Family values are negotiable if your chosen messiah is the one cheating. Clinton’s blowjob was the end of civilization. Trump’s porn star hush money is “fake news.”
This isn’t hypocrisy. This is Olympic-level hypocrisy. Triple axel, stick the landing, gold medal hypocrisy.
The Hatred Rebranded
The real grotesque twist isn’t just the moral gymnastics. It’s how Trump gave his supporters permission to be their worst selves.
For decades, bigotry had to stay behind closed doors. Your racist uncle muttered things at Thanksgiving, but he didn’t put them on Facebook. Your homophobic neighbor might sneer, but he kept it at a whisper. Misogyny lived in locker rooms and man caves.
Trump tore the lid off. Suddenly it was patriotic to sneer at immigrants, noble to mock trans kids, courageous to roll coal past a Pride parade. He gave them not just permission but applause. Hatred became the brand. Cruelty became the point.
They don’t even hide it anymore. They wear T-shirts that say things people used to only dare scrawl on bathroom stalls. The quiet ugliness of America finally had a leader who told them: “Don’t whisper. Shout it.”
The South’s Open Wound
Living in the South, I see it daily. Confederate flags doubling as bedspreads. Pickup trucks flying banners bigger than the drivers’ IQs. Churches preaching about love on Sunday and hate on Monday.
Trump didn’t create this rot. He exposed it. He watered it. He gave it fertilizer and a stage. And suddenly, the progress we thought we’d made—civil rights, LGBTQ equality, women’s rights—looked fragile, conditional, reversible.
All it took was one man with a microphone to prove that the South’s ugliest traditions were not dead, just dormant.
Voting Against Themselves
The cruelest joke of all: Trump supporters consistently vote against their own interests.
They scream about healthcare costs—then cheer when Republicans try to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. They’re drowning in student loan debt—then hiss at forgiveness programs. They’re one paycheck away from homelessness—then vote for politicians who gut housing aid and unions.
Why? Because cruelty is sweeter than security. Because nothing feels better than knowing someone you despise is suffering more than you are.
If they can’t afford healthcare, why should immigrants get it? If they’re drowning in debt, why should Black families have access to affordable education? If they’re stuck in misery, they want company.
Trumpism isn’t about prosperity. It’s about punishment. It’s about voting not for what helps you, but for what hurts someone else.
The Discourse Sewer
Right-wing discourse today isn’t discourse. It’s sewage.
Turn on the TV, scroll Twitter (sorry, “X”), or wander into a Facebook group. You’ll hear the greatest hits:
- Immigrants are criminals.
- Trans people are predators.
- Black people are lazy.
- Women don’t deserve autonomy.
- Liberals hate America.
It’s a playlist of lies, each one repeated often enough to harden into “truth” for the cult. None of it is real, none of it withstands scrutiny, but it doesn’t matter. Truth isn’t the point. Permission is.
These lies give people the license to hate, to sneer, to dehumanize their neighbors while wrapping themselves in the flag. Trump didn’t invent the sewer. He just unclogged it.
Christianity in Name Only
Here’s the part that might sting: the Christians.
Not the real ones—the quiet ones who feed the hungry and clothe the poor. I mean the loud ones. The performative evangelicals who treat the Bible like a campaign prop and Jesus like a political endorsement.
These are the people who call themselves “pro-life” while cheering the death penalty. Who clutch pearls about drag queens but shrug off mass shootings. Who claim moral superiority while worshiping a man who embodies none of their supposed values.
Jesus preached humility, compassion, truth. Trump embodies arrogance, cruelty, and lies. Jesus healed the sick. Trump mocked them. Jesus blessed the poor. Trump called them losers. Jesus flipped tables in the temple. Trump sold Bibles with his face on them for $59.99.
If this is Christianity, then waterboarding is baptism.
The Vitriol Economy
Hate isn’t just a feeling anymore. It’s an economy. And Trump supporters are its most loyal consumers.
Cable news survives on outrage. Social media thrives on rage clicks. Politicians fundraise on vitriol. Entire ecosystems exist because MAGA keeps buying the product.
Trump supporters don’t just participate. They bankroll the machine. They are the customers of hate, the shareholders of division.
The Fragile Veneer of Progress
The most heartbreaking part of all this is what it reveals about America itself. We wanted to believe we’d moved forward. That racism, homophobia, sexism were receding into history. That progress was real.
But Trump’s movement proved progress was a veneer. A fragile, temporary paint job hiding rot beneath.
The truth is that hatred never left. It hibernated. It waited for a leader who gave it permission to rise again.
And now it’s back in full bloom.
The Comedy of Contradictions
The contradictions of Trump supporters could fill volumes.
- They scream about government overreach while demanding laws against abortion, marriage, and books.
- They chant “Blue Lives Matter” until the cops investigate their candidate.
- They rail against handouts while living on Social Security.
- They quote scripture while cheering cruelty.
- They claim patriotism while trying to overturn elections.
It would be hilarious if it weren’t lethal. It would be farce if it weren’t policy.
The Cult Mindset
What we’re witnessing is not politics. It’s cult behavior.
Devotion without logic. Worship without scrutiny. Excuses for every sin, denial for every failure, blind faith in every promise. The cult of Trump doesn’t operate on truth. It operates on grievance.
And like all cults, it is less about the leader and more about the followers. The leader is interchangeable. The devotion is the danger.
The Legacy of Permission
Trump will eventually vanish. Whether by election, indictment, or biology, he will leave the stage. But his supporters won’t.
Because what they’ve gained isn’t Trump himself. It’s permission. Permission to say what they want. Permission to hate who they want. Permission to weaponize cruelty as patriotism.
That permission will outlive him. It already has.
So no, I don’t give a damn about Trump. He’s a rerun, a bloated footnote, a trivia question for future middle schoolers.
What terrifies me are the supporters. The millions who revealed that America’s progress was never permanent. That hatred isn’t gone, just waiting. That ugliness is the default, progress the exception.
The haunting truth is this: America wasn’t divided because of Trump. America was already divided. Trump just gave that division a flag, a hat, and a slogan.
And the millions who followed him proved that the real apocalypse isn’t one man with power. It’s a crowd with permission.