Trump presidency comes with a price

As a U.S. Marine and retired park ranger, I take pride in my political independence and my ability to be prepared for almost any situation life might throw at me.

Yet I was unprepared when I awoke on the morning of Nov. 9, 2016, to learn that Donald Trump would become my country’s 45th president. Tears welled in my eyes. Not because of any personal animus about the man himself. But out of a sense of betrayal by my fellow Americans.

For months, I had assured people who were concerned that Trump would win that my countrymen, regardless of their political affiliation, would never vote a man of such low morality, mean spirit and racist hatred into office. Nothing I had heard from him or about him led me to believe that he cared about anything other than accumulating wealth and power for himself. I had gone to bed with faith in my fellow Americans and awoke with that faith shaken.

Since then, I’ve tried to understand the appeal of Trump and who would vote for him. I’ve tried to understand why Evangelical Christians — men and women who live by the Ten Commandments, commandments such as “Thou shalt not make yourself an idol … Thou shalt not commit adultery … Thou shalt not steal” — have not only voted for him, but idolize him, champion him and are among his most fervent supporters.

I’ve tried to understand how combat veterans such as myself could vote for a draft dodger who denigrated a true war hero, John McCain, a Gold Star family, and combat veterans in general.

Then a couple months ago, I came across this musing by Peter Wehner, a devout Christian, staunch Republican and former speech writer for President George W. Bush:

“I struggle more than I once did to wall off a person’s character from their politics when their politics are binding them to an unusually — and I would say undeniably — destructive person. The lies that MAGA world parrots are so manifestly untrue, and the Trump ethic is so manifestly cruel, that they are difficult to set aside. … How should I think about people who, in other domains of their lives, are admirable human beings and yet provide oxygen to his malicious movement? How complicit are people who live in a hall of mirrors and have sincerely — or half-sincerely — convinced themselves they are on the side of the angels?”

That’s the question, isn’t it?

“How should I think about people who, in other domains of their lives, are admirable human beings and yet provide oxygen to his malicious movement?”

Because malicious certainly describes the MAGA movement.

For more than a decade, poll after poll has found that Americans of all political identities think the country is going in the wrong direction. People are frightened.

Maybe there’s an appeal for a millionaire who lives in a castlelike estate yet against all odds has convinced people that he himself is a champion of the common person. A person who agrees the country is going in the wrong direction. A person who, despite having no discernible plan, will not only make the country great again but is the only person who can do so. A person who tells those of us who live paycheck to paycheck and haven’t quite gotten hold of that brass ring that the problem is “Those people.” Those “others.” That we should fear them … hate them … be angry at them.

But for all the dissatisfaction with the direction the country is going, it sure feels like the problems are on this side of that wall. We’re more divided than we have ever been and Trump is only feeding and widening that divide.

Unfortunately for all of us, a Trump presidency is not without a price.

That nagging feeling of frustration and disappointment over watching the country tear itself apart will not go away because we convince ourselves that tax cuts for the rich are somehow a great benefit to everyone or that referring to our allies as sh*thole countries is funny or American even though it’s neither.

“Owning the libs” won’t help our kids buy a house.

I believe that most Americans, Christian or not, try to live up to the aspirational spirit of the Ten Commandments. It’s just who we Americans are. Or so I thought. I didn’t sign up for Trump’s cruel vision of America and I hope that you won’t either.

Wayne Hare, a decorated combat Marine, lives and writes from Grand Junction, Colo. He is a retired federal park ranger and the executive director of thecivilconversationsproject.org.