"...I Don't Hate Donald Trump..."

Hate the sin. Love the sinner.

A classic fifties tune from The Essex comes to mind.

"...easier....easier said than done..."

Hate the sin. Love the sinner

Tall order under the best of circumstances.

Virtually impossible when it comes to Donald Trump.

Almost two years ago, in the course of doing my, then, weekly Sunday night talk/commentary/infotainment program on a well known mid Atlantic news/talk radio station, I found myself regularly, and unfailingly, swimming against what I feared was an insurmountable tide by being out in front of those who were, then, just beginning to warn what would happen should Trump be elected President.

While it might seem self serving at this point in the chronology of it all, my conscience is clear that I did what I could to try and make the case that very little, if any at all, good could come from putting Trump in that position. This highest office in the land, this position of power and authority and responsibility and statesmanship so complex, so intricate, so fundamentally critical to the well being of the entire nation, from sea to shining sea, that, until Donald, only 44 other men have been chosen in the 240 years America has been America.

Now, at the moment that this piece is being written, America is seven months into the four year term that the Constitution mandates and I've personally come to a place where even a hard headed fellow like me can see the futility and wasted energy involved in making any further attempts to signal a warning.

For all of the talk, historically, about "a house divided", for all of the most recent assertions that the Obama years drew a line of divisiveness like none before it, division, as manifested by the election of Donald Trump, has come down to a line drawn in the sand and the cornfield and the city streets that makes the ideological bickering of the Civil War period look like two people arguing over where to have lunch.

The era of Trump has boiled the essence of opinion and philosophy and ideology down to its most basic and primal form.

"...yew is either fer us...or yew is agin' us.."

That sentiment, by the way, more appropriately the mantra of those who did then, do now and will, likely, ever here after support, endorse and, even, admire Trump and what he has done since "solemnly swearing to faithfully execute."

As should come to no surprise to anyone who follows any of my work, either in print or on air, I don't count myself among that number.

So, if you're just joining me for the first time, either in print or on air, and you're still feeling the buzz when you slap on the Make America Great Again cap, I feel like I should be up front with you in the spirit of full disclosure.

I be agin' ya.

That said, while I, again, harbor no illusions or delusions about changing any minds, the writer/commentator in me feels motivated, if not inspired, to take a shot at sharing with those of you ding dang delighted at Donald and his ding dang super duper demagoguery, something that I'd like made very clear.

I don't hate Donald Trump.

In fact, I've even taken a few minutes to put together a little piece within the piece I like to call...

"I Don't Hate Donald Trump".

I don't hate Donald Trump...I don't know Donald Trump. Never met the man. Never met a man or a woman who has met Donald Trump.

For all I know, he may be the warmest, fuzziest, gol' darndest peach of a person, husband, dad, granddad that since Norman Rockwell first started painting poignant portraits of gol' darn peaches of persons,husbands, dads and granddads and generating a world wide "awww" factor in a whole bunch of issues of Saturday Evening Post.

Truth is you just never know the truth of what goes on behind closed doors until, and unless, you have the advantage of hanging out behind those closed doors.

So, and I only repeat myself repeatedly because this piece is for everyone who cares to read it, but is especially offered for those who think that I, and "people like me", hate Donald Trump.

I don't hate Donald Trump....

...I hate that he has made hate acceptable...even respectable....even, to many of his supporters, endorsers and devotees, a quality to be encouraged, emulated, even admired. That encouragement, of course, coming in the form of making excuses, rationalizing, justifying the hateful tone, if not the outright hateful attitude of his presentation, be that in the form of interview, speech or, God in Heaven deliver us from the curse of 140 characters or less, the tweets.

...I hate that he has diminished us, all of us, whether we be "fer" or "agin", exposing our angers and resentments and shallowness and a hundred other mere mortal failings with his near mocking disdain for the concept of calling on our better angels and, instead, employing, and relying on, his signature brand of provoking, inciting, never inspiring a crowd when inciting a mob is available as an option. And for no better reason than his own love of stirring the shit pot because that's what you do when you want, and need , to be the center of attention, the focus of the gaze of others, the elephant in any, and every, room into which you walk.

...I hate that he has broken the covenant between office seeker and voter. The unspoken agreement that has, for hundreds of years, guaranteed that while the majority of us were neither gullible nor naive and were fully cognizant that politics is a brutal business and omelets don't get made without eggs being broken, that no matter how "down and dirty" any political campaign might get  there would always be, at some point, a limit on how down and how dirty, that no matter how ugly it seemingly needed to get in order to succeed in the debate, score in the polls or even win the eventual election, there was a line, a point at which both sides knew that to cross that line meant doing damage to ourselves, and each other, damage from which we might never recover. The line, for example, in a personal relationship between passionate, even furious, verbal assault...and actual physical attack. A line that, once crossed, can never be uncrossed, undone, taken back....possibly never forgiven. Most certainly never, ever forgotten.

...I hate that he has cheapened the office of President of the United States with his stunning, and, yet sadly, foreseeable inability and/or unwillingness to even recognize, let alone embrace, the integrity and sanctity of the office itself, incapable of, again, and/or unwilling to recognize, let alone accept, that the acquisition and holding of that office is a privilege, an honor beyond sacrosanct. And that incumbent upon the occupant of that office is the duty and responsibility to put that honor ahead of all other considerations, most especially, but not limited to, personal ambition, greed, need or simple, basic inevitable human flaws and failings. 44 men before him, most especially including four who were murdered in the service of their country in that office, at least put forth best effort to wrestle with their demons while respecting the majesty of the office. More importantly, 44 men before him understood what the 45th clearly does not....the definition, and context, of the word "majesty" when it comes to being President.

...I hate that he has devalued America in the eyes of the world and the leaders of the other nations in this world, through his embarrassing and juvenile attempts to push and shove his way to the front of the line, as if he were a fifteen year old, still in the fifth grader who lacked the social skills or maturity to understand that bullying somebody out of their milk money might put a few shiny coins in your pocket in the short term but exacts a heavy price from you, and your sycophant gang of gangstas, in the long run.

...I hate that he has lowered the bar, in the level of debate, in the standard of behavior, in the caliber of conversation, in the energy expenditure necessary to engage in thoughtful, insightful, useful discourse among ourselves. In its place, illogic and insurrection, inane rationalizations for indescribably idiotic behavior, "well, he just called his Attorney General a wimp and he wants to dismantle the court system because they don't give him everything he wants...but how about when Bill was getting a blow job from Monica, huh? how about that?'

...I hate that he has either disoriented good people so badly that they don't know which end is up or he has exposed supposedly good people as possibly not such good people after all....people who abhor violence, respect women, profess Christian values, would never think for a second to ridicule those less fortunate, pay their taxes and even hold the door for both their neighbors and strangers....but who can't seem to grasp why those of us appalled by this man are appalled because he called out to rally attendees to beat the shit out of those who disagreed with him, bragged of grabbing women by the pussy, mockingly imitated a reporter with a congenital defect, had deducted more on his own taxes than you and I and our children and their children will ever make in a lifetime and, no matter how trivial it might seem, walks ten steps ahead of his wife at all times and pushes his way through a line of world leaders to make sure he's front and center in the picture about to be taken. And, still, he is defended...and supported....and enabled. What have we become?  Who are we? And what has been done with who we were?.....

...and I hate that all of this, all of it, and all of whatever is to come, comes not as a necessary, if unpleasant, waste product of turning things around, building us up, making our streets and schools safer, getting people to a doctor when they need one, weathering some grand storm or even making America great again...it all comes from the need one man has to feel better about himself than he obviously feels. It comes from what happens when a very flawed, very unhappy, very socially awkward man with no sense of history whatsoever convinces the right number of people in the right number of counties in the right number of states possessing the right number of electoral votes that he can make them feel better about their lives with the stroke of a pen, the bullying of a Senate, the building of a wall, the taking of an oath to faithfully execute the office that a seventh grade civics student can see he has no real clue about what is involved in executing that office with firmness and determination and even controversy, but with equal parts diplomacy, sanctity...and integrity.

That America has been reduced to this, the case is clearly made, is a sin.

Hate the sin. Love the sinner.

I hate the sin.

The rest of that is asking too much.