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Yes, the title of this post is correct. It is exactly what I meant to type in the headline space. If you are highly sensitive and thin-skinned and lean right (politically speaking) you may want to quit reading. I am passionate about what is going on and I cannot avoid using this blog to speak up.
But wait; I am a Realtor and I am not supposed to openly state my political beliefs for fear of losing business, right? Some say it is blasphemy or professional suicide to speak or write one’s political views, in case a prospective customer might see or hear me and decide they can’t work with me. That’s too damn bad for me, I suppose. Hmmm… Guess I am a US citizen before I am a Realtor. And for a real estate blog about Santa Fe NM residential property and market trends, I might be preaching to the choir; I don’t know. Santa Fe is as left leaning as any city I am aware of. I don’t expect everyone to agree with me.
If you have alt-right, anti-POC, anti LGBT, anti-Semite, climate change denying, socially regressive, pro-Trump views and beliefs, do not contact me for real estate business if you prefer to work with someone who is more like you. I might speak about my beliefs while in your company. I might ask you about your beliefs. I am both sorry not sorry. That’s just the way it is. There are plenty of other Realtors out there that will keep their mouth shut when it comes to current events.
If you fear we are dangerously close to becoming a socialist country, which might mean affordable health care for all, don’t contact me. If you believe “Drill baby drill” is the best philosophy when it comes to energy sources, do not contact me.
Until there are checks and balances on the 45th President, preventing him from taking away basic health care from those that most need it, not allowing him to put abusers and hateful people into lifetime appointments in the judicial system, forcing him to obey the laws of this land (taxes, emoluments, honest dealings with people), I will not agree to just give him some time to sort things out. Already, in less than 2 years, he has destroyed many hard-fought victories for many disadvantaged and suffering people and institutions. He has laid waste to honesty and integrity in his communication and his behavior. He has incited violence (terrorism) here at home and destroyed alliances with almost all of our allies (unless he profits from doing business with them). He represents, so he says, his base, but that might be a mere 35 to 40% of people who actually voted in 2016. That might approach 20% of all Americans. So yes, more people should vote.
Let us all be certain to vote November 6th (I voted early and was pleased to see good crowds out on a rainy day). Because until we vote in enough legislative people to put a check on the lawless, corrupt, unethical, immoral and hateful activities he supports, we will have to be very careful in what were traditionally safe places: schools, places of worship, places of public gatherings…
Every now and then someone comes along that gets such a large head start on fooling the majority of people, that a great deal of damage is done before enough come to realize what is going on. We have passed the point where we are impressed with his ability to garner votes. Once the Russian meddling in our elections became well-known and understood, his legitimate standing as President became in doubt. He is not my President.
What are others saying? I have borrowed from a New Yorker article recently published online:
On Wednesday, David Gergen, the veteran Republican political commentator, who has worked for four different Presidents, said on CNN, “Donald Trump unleashed the dogs of hatred in this country from the day he declared he was running for President. And they’ve been snarling and barking at each other ever since. It’s just inevitable there are going to be acts of violence that grow out of that.”
The veteran Republican strategist Steve Schmidt, who worked on the Presidential campaigns of George W. Bush and John McCain, has become an ardent critic of Trump. On Wednesday, in a series of tweets commenting on the pipe-bomb attacks, he described Trump as “the greatest demagogue in American history,” someone who “has celebrated violence over and over again.” Schmidt went on, writing that “no journalist or commentator should be intimidated from making this point. The stoking of hatred and sundering of the American people was always going to lead to terrible consequences. Chief amongst them would be the initiation of partisan or sectarian violence within our country.”
The above quotes are just from this week, a tragic and historically horrible week in our history. Is it getting better? I say no, as long as that President continues to blame everyone else for his human shortcomings and his determination to abandon democracy for the sort of dictatorship practiced by Putin that he so covets. He simply cannot stand criticism, believing it to be unfair to him. In a way it is as if he thinks he lives “above the law”.
Here is to honest and heart-felt discourse without blame and without prejudice. Here is to finding ways to make ourselves and our society better. Here is to helping preserve this beautiful world for our great-grandchildren. I hope each and every person can find ways to improve someone else’s welfare and sanity in addition to just worrying about their own piece of the pie.
