The Trump Supporters of Today Are the Active Shooters of Tomorrow

Their lawlessness isn’t going to stop until we hold them accountable

Look, kids, look!

Look at the house of the domestic terrorist. He’s still flying the campaign banners of a candidate that lost more than a year ago.

He’s mad because he thinks he’s a member of a superior race. Yet, he lives in a run down house and he can’t get a date. Even his lawnmower doesn’t work, you can tell by all the garbage in his yard.

He had a low paying job because he thinks education is for “losers.” Now he’s on disability, but he always votes to cancel Social Security. He spends all of his extra money on AR-15s.

He feels he’s been cheated. He feels he’s been lied to. He thinks he’s a victim. One day something will make him snap and he’ll decide he’s going to make the world pay. He’ll stomp off to the local school and kill children and be hailed as a hero for the radical right.

But he’s not an active shooter today. Today he’s just a loser. What he doesn’t realize is that when he transforms into an active shooter, he’ll become something even worse.

When will it stop?

I wrote that introduction like a Dr. Seuss book so the average Trump supporter could understand it. I didn’t write it like a Big Bird dialogue because the political right hates Big Bird.

It’s time for every American to pause for a moment of reflect. Ask yourself who do you fear? Who is the person who is most likely to cause harm to you and your family?

Is it an impoverished person living in a desert that’s over 10,000 miles away? Or is it the guy driving around in the rusted pickup truck flying Trump banners and Confederate flags?

I don’t know why people can think we can sit around and do nothing and the Trump supporters will eventually level out. When have they done anything other than double down on their delusions? It’s gotten to the point that when I see a car flying Trump flags, I just pull over. I don’t want to be driving at highway speeds next to somebody who is liable to try and run me off the road.

Trump keeps calling for violence

We all watched in shock and horror as Trump called for his most deranged supporters to attack our Capitol. They brought weapons. They brought wood to make a gallows. Trump bragged about the size of the crowd.

I despise Mike Pence, but we can’t live in a society where anyone is allowed to threaten our elected politicians. That’s the end of civilization. Yet Trump keeps doing it!

“They were saying ‘hang Mike Pence,’” Karl told Trump.

Trump responded: “Because it’s common sense, Jon. It’s common sense that you’re supposed to protect.” — Sinéad Baker

Why is our society so indifferent to how dangerous this kind of language is? People say video games should be banned because it desensitizes kids to violence. Why aren’t those people critical when a former president justifies the attempt of a lawless mob to hang the vice-president?

When Trump says things like that, lunatics hear it. Lunatics then become emboldened to go out and commit acts of destruction, terrorism, and murder.

I don’t want to live in that world.

I’ve known many Trump supporters since they were children

A good portion of my family went off the deep end and they are now in the Trump cult. It’s difficult to put into words what a betrayal this is.

All my life, I’ve acted a certain way towards them. I’ve treated them with kindness. I’ve forgiven them for their trespasses against me. I’ve thought I had an influence. I thought they possessed a kind of basic decency.

“We’re family, we’ve got your back, we’ll always be there to protect you.”

But then they voted for a president who used his platform to call for violence against my children? Trumps inciting language has been traced to tragic assaults for half a decade.

In 2016, a white man told officers “Donald Trump will fix them” while being arrested for threatening his Black neighbors with a knife. That same year, a Florida man threatened to burn down a house next to his because a Muslim family purchased it, claiming that Trump’s Muslim ban made it a reason for “concern.” Then there are the more widely known examples, like Cesar Sayoc, who mailed 16 inoperative pipe bombs to Democratic leaders and referred to Trump as a “surrogate father”; and the mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, in 2019 that left 23 dead, where the shooter’s manifesto parroted Trump’s rhetoric about immigrants — Fabiola Cineas

The Trump supporters in my family were always inclined to violence. One of my cousins is an absolute sadist. His younger brothers all told me about how he used to torture them until they finally got big enough to beat him in a fight. Once beaten in the fight, he became docile and pathetic, but he still looks for weaker people to prey on.

He’s a guy who scares me. He’s always been covered in guns. When you challenge him on a factual point he flies into a righteous rage and begins to threaten your life. It honestly makes me nervous that he knows where I live.

When I point out this behavior to the other Trump supporters in his family, they just shrug and dismiss it. “Oh, that’s just the way he is, you have to learn to accept it.”

No! Why should I have to learn to tolerate his sadism but nobody pressures him to abide by the rules of basic decency?

Gun advocacy is this guy’s passion. When you suggest common sense gun reform, he bullies his way into the room and is absolutely tenacious. He’ll not listen to a single, logical counter-argument. He works himself up into a murderous range and justifies his aggression by insisting his opponents are making an unprovoked attack on his personal autonomy.

It’s only a matter of time before he kills somebody. I shudder to think what he does to his own children behind locked doors where nobody can see.

Our country is mentally ill

If you are a responsible person and you work in schools, you constantly see the poor, broken down, innocent kids that are forced to endure households like this. It’s heartbreaking and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.

You try to show kids some decency and tell them they’re entitled to self-respect, but then they go home to endure verbal abuse and physical attacks for the other 23 hours in the day they’re not around you.

Yeah, don’t try to tell me about getting social services involved. The courts are packed with conservatives remember? They’re pretty satisfied in seeing these children converted into self-loathing, gun-toting, hate-filled Republicans who stomp around screaming, “Screw your feelings.”

That’s all they’ve ever heard.

They’re coming for you, don’t ignore the warning signs

There’s a very good chance you and your children are going to get ripped apart by bullets in the United States. There will be a half hour of mourning while all the Republicans scream, “Let’s not make this political!” Then your tragedy will drift into memory and absolutely nothing will be done to make it a better world for anyone else.

Fixing this starts with holding politicians accountable when they threaten other politicians. Trump has clearly threatened politicians again and again and again. Why is it taking so long for our legal system and our population to come together to denounce his hate rhetoric?

Right now, about the only thing responsible parents can do is make sure they tell their children to give the houses with the MAGA flags a wide berth. If your children are non-white, make sure the MAGA houses don’t know where you live.

They’re armed. They’re angry. They’re delusional, and powerful people keep telling them to go out and commit acts of violence. Welcome to America.