Finally going to try and put some thoughts together about this week….

Tuesday night was a very good night for millions of people around the country and in the state of Wisconsin. It was a bad night for millions of other people. A very bad night. Including myself. However, it’s been the last couple of days that have been worse. I’ve been discombobulated in a way that is unfamiliar. I don’t think I’m ready to intelligently put all the thoughts and feelings into words yet but decided I should because I am taking a week off from work starting tomorrow. It’s not because I feel like I’m so important that my voice should be heard but I am very fortunate to have a venue like this and my on-air work to give my thoughts and, perhaps, they can add to the conversation many people here in central Wisconsin and elsewhere are having.

8 years ago today on November 8, 2016, Donald Trump was first elected president by defeating Hillary Clinton in the electoral college. Yes, Hillary did get a few million more votes than Trump but that doesn’t matter in our system. 8 years ago tonight there was shock at the result but, as naive as it may seem now, one could have a number of reasons to think “it won’t be that bad.” Or that it will just be four years and America will see that this man is totally incapable of doing this job and we can get thru one term without destroying so much that has been built before this. That this was some sort of “accident” not indicative of what we are as a people.

The results of this week have shown how naive I was. November 8, 2016 was not an accident. The blinders should have fallen earlier. In November of 2020, despite a presidency that non-partisan historians have rated as the worst in history. Despite presiding over governmental inemptness that lost millions their livelihood and even their lives, it took four days to find out that the American electorate did not reelect him. We thought we had narrowly avoided a second nightmare of four more years of Trump’s chaos. It would be less than two months before an insurrection launched by Trump and his MAGA base soiled and damaged a great portion of the U.S. Capitol to try and keep him in office despite losing a fair election in the electoral college and by more than 7 million votes. Again, it felt like we narrowly survived but now, finally, we would be able to move forward. Trump allies like Senator Lindsey Graham and Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell said this was it. This was too far. Not too far, however, to vote for articles of impeachment and to ban Trump from running for office again. Nikki Haley said that was unnecessary. She told journalist Tim Alberta in 2021 “He’s not going to run for federal office again.” Alberta pushed her saying “What if he does? Can the Republican Party heal with Trump in the picture?” Haley was certain he wouldn’t and said “We need to acknowledge he let us down. He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him. And we can’t let that ever happen again.”

Nikki Haley endorsed Trump. Lindsey Graham endorsed Trump. Mitch McConnell endorsed Trump. The Republican Party nominated Trump. The American voters elected Trump.

That’s why I, and many of you, feel and know this is worse than 2016. We all knew who Donald Trump was as a person in 2016 and millions and millions voted to elect him. In 2024 we also know who Donald Trump is as a president and millions and millions voted to elect him. 2016 wasn’t an accident. 2024 shows that. 2024’s campaign was ever nastier than 2016 was. Millions don’t care.

The feelings I have aren’t all about Donald Trump. In fact they are less about Donald Trump than about the people of this country and less about where I stand in this country but about those who have less protection than I do. It’s about people showing, and voting, for the idea that basic decency doesn’t matter. At all. The American people didn’t see someone who literally broke the law and was convicted of it as someone who shouldn’t be President of the United States. That cruelty is not something that should hurt a candidate but something that makes a candidate more attractive to millions of Americans. Voting for this in 2024 knowing exactly who this man is as a person and as a public servant. Weren’t we taught by our parents, our teachers, our churches what is right and what is wrong? Weren’t we taught to treat others as we would want to be treated? I won’t list the different groups of people that have been slandered every day of the Trump presidency and the two Trump campaigns. We saw over and over again the commercials and saw the rallies. Called “vermin”. Human beings called that and so much more. A rally in New York City 9 days before the election where people are called “garbage” not just by a “comedian” but by speaker after speaker. What is our country? The fact that the answer is much darker than I thought for my whole life has thrown me for a loop this week in a way that is far greater than it was in November of 2016 and the four years that followed.

Five days before the election I went to Stevens Point to be at a public event that Todd Allbaugh and Trygve Olson were hosting to talk to the people as part of their “What Makes Wisconsin Great Tour.” Trygve talked about how, despite our deep political differences, that our neighbors are still good people. That people who disagreed with him politically were still there to help when he had a family issue. That people are good. As I listened I wanted to believe that. I had grave doubts it was true then. Just over a week later my question is how can a country think they are “good” and “kind” and “caring” yet vote for the epitome of the opposite of that? I don’t think there is a good answer or a true answer to that question. 60 percent of Marathon County voted for cruelty, for a government that is promising to be “nasty” at times.

I am fairly sure if I waited a bit more time to write this blog it would have been different. More forward looking at what we need to do to get past this part of our country’s history. However, I’m not past the awful feeling that has been with me all week long. I also don’t think it’s a bad thing to remember this feeling. No matter what I think next week or next month or next year. It’s ok to not be ok about this. We will rise again and work for the things we believe in, doing it in a way that is honorable I hope. I, for one, will take the next week to try and figure a few things out and I’m sure you will too. Let’s meet on the other side. I’ll be back on my show on Monday, November 18th and hope you will be there too.