Concerning defenses of the administration, e.g., “Trump says it like it is.” “He’s not Politically Correct.” “Give him a chance.”

I understand that there’s a large segment of our population that felt ignored, who felt like Trump was reaching out to them. But to support this candidate again ignores his transparent authoritarian, mafioso tendencies.

He’s charismatic, he’s raunchy, and he’s a “rebel.” That’s not why we’re outraged at him. Those may be underlying red flags to deeper issues of his character, but they have nothing to do with why we — or I, at least — cannot accept that this is who we are as American citizens.

This election it should be clear to us: it’s between Joe Biden, or a candidate who:

• solicited Russia to hack political opponents,
• hired and fired criminals to the highest positions in government,
• promoted conspiracy theories about past and current elected officials,
• implied that white supremacists should attack politicians (“maybe you second amendment people should do something”, “stand down and stand by”),
• used his twitter to incite or at least exacerbate domestic terrorism,
• demanded the execution of 4 innocent black men even after they were proven innocent,
• implied all Latinos with tattoos are thugs, implied all Latino refugees requesting asylum are criminals,
• narrowly interpreted policies to allow his administration to separate families at the border to intimidate asylum seekers while losing track of children left behind,
• used police and national guard to stifle first amendment rights of citizens exercising peaceful protest,
• tear gassed a church,
• lied about his involvement with escorts and paid them off with campaign funds,
• embedded himself with strong men fascist regimes across the globe while escalating tensions with countries in the Middle East and allowing further proliferation of nuclear technology in both Iran and North Korea,
• believed Putin over his own FBI concerning Russian meddling in elections,
• sided with Saudi Arabia in the brutal murder of a journalist of an American publication because they purchase weapons,
• hired his unqualified family to nebulous and far reaching positions in the government,
• appointed a company with two employees to rebuild the entirety of Puerto Rico after a disastrous hurricane,
• gutted many environmental protections that prevented ejection of harmful waste into air and water supplies,
• blackmailed a foreign country into fabricating information about Hunter Biden,
• disbanded a pandemic response commission,
• ignored medical professionals and downplayed the pandemic to prevent any chance of preparation so his allies could shore up their investments before a crash,
• ignored the emoluments clause and has countless compromising undisclosed business deals across the world,
• enacted executive orders with such incompetence that SCOTUS overturned them, taunted journalists with disabilities,
• made comments resulting in his base sending death threats to journalists and scientists,
• claimed war heroes aren’t heroes if they’re caught,
• disrespected military servicemen in general through his comments about McCain, Duckworth, Beau, and others,
• joked about the suicide of our servicemen,
• abandoned our allies in the Middle East in Syria, enabled the escape of ISIS prisoners during said abandoning,
• hired Betsy DeVos whose family is involved with religious private schooling to manage public schools,
• hired DeJoy who has investments in competing mailing services and a clear agenda to assist him in election fraud for the postal service,
• repeatedly mismanaged a pandemic to epic proportions which snowballed to the deaths of tens of thousands,
• damaged relationships with all foreign allies to the point they literally publicly laughed at him,
• started several racist movements including birtherism,
• threatened constitutionally protected journalists,
• uploaded doctored/manipulated videos to try and hurt the reputation of journalists,
• retweeted his followers yelling “White Power”,
• retweeted literal KKK members,
• advertised products while in office,
• arranged expensive stays at his own hotels repeatedly with his entire security detail,
• golfed and vacationed more times in 4 years than Obama did in 8,
• seeded citizen distrust of our public servants across almost all investigative and legal entities in our government,
• left top level positions vacant to abuse “acting” status members to avoid legislative hiring accountability,
• placed unqualified judges with no experience in positions forced vacant by senatorial malice during the previous administration,
• allowed his son in law to handle matters of life and death resulting in the order of faulty ventilators from Russia and a general malaise approach to pandemic countering since it would hit “blue” states first,
• stoked the flames of hate and fear during a nation-wide protest resulting in far right extremists inflaming citizens and sometimes killing them like in the case of Kyle Rittenhouse,
• demeaned and belittled women including AOC and Hillary Clinton,
• accused a judge of bias due to his race, described the investigation on his campaign as an expensive witch hunt even though it resulted in the guilty pleas of over a dozen individuals and ended up fining individuals involved in excess of the cost of the investigation itself,
• demonized young representatives referred to as “the squad” based on their race and political viewpoints,
• built a wall at the border that caused ecological and societal damage while disrespecting the wishes of indigenous people,
• shut down a pandemic response team before a global pandemic,
• withheld federal financial aid from “blue” cities,
• failed to maintain the federal stockpiles of PPE and therefore seized PPE shipments meant for states during the pandemic and subsequently forced states into bidding wars to regain them,
• used executive orders to bludgeon the Affordable Care Act because his administration couldn’t outline a replacement plan,
• described his daughter as sexually attractive multiple times,
• bragged about sexually assaulting women on tape,
• shared fake news and conspiracy theories on his twitter and later defended himself by saying he did it “just to put it out there”,
• thought that making a movie trailer for Kim Jong Un counted as diplomacy,
• suggested that he wanted to deploy US military to countries who would pay for it,
• cut funding to the WHO (the organization that eradicated smallpox and nearly Polio),
• left several international agreements that took decades to create that gave Iran a path to peace and would combat climate change,
• started the first tariff war since the Holly Smoot Tariff Act (which worsened the Great Depression) which hurt soy bean farmers so badly that the administration had to bail them out,
• pardoned a sheriff convicted of criminal contempt who proudly described his detention center as a concentration camp,
• pardoned Roger Stone who lied to congress, obstructed justice, and tampered with witnesses,
• pardoned military officers convicted of war crimes,
• fired the head of the FBI for investigating his campaign’s ties to Russia,
• said “The only good democrat is a dead democrat” as we deal with right extremist aggression toward fellow Americans,
• conspicuously tore up any evidence documents he was given which was a habit indicative of criminal history,
• pushed conspiracy theories that lead to his fans to sending bombs to journalists and politicians,
• joked about those bombs and wouldn’t defend the Americans receiving them,
• lied more and at a higher ratio than any past politician reviewed by fact checking journals,
• declared there were good people on both sides following neo-Nazis driving a car into and killing a young woman named Heather Heyer,
• regularly threatened specific politicians like Maxine Waters as targets for his followers to implicitly harm with phrases like “you better be careful”,
• suggested teachers should carry guns,
• suggested guns would have prevented a synagogue from being targeted,
• further increased the federal deficit while reducing taxes owed by large corporations,
• stole money from a child cancer charity through his organization,
• insults our own historical landmarks and cities,
• cheered as his followers blockaded and threatened political opponents,
• tried to use AG Barr to escape the responsibility of being a defendant in a rape defamation case by passing the buck to the government,
• and last but not least had to close the grift known as Trump University after it was decided that the organization made false advertisements to student “apprenticeships” and failed to provide an adequate education.

The United States and its citizens will have to atone for the actions of this president, the damage he’s done to our allies, and the deep divides he’s driven through our identity. How long that will take is up to us.