Cruelty Free

In 2020, a parent parked her car in front of my classroom. Her bumper sticker, in support of Mr. Trump, said, “F@@k Your Feelings.”

Why would anyone vote for a leader with that attitude?

A photo that shows up on X every so often shows the former president, during the campaign, making fun of a disabled reporter. The person who made the post can’t understand why this wasn’t the end of his campaign. Neither can I.

Why would you want a leader who gets his thrills from other people’s pain?

Cruelty doesn’t make one strong. Rather, it’s a sign of weakness that one needs to make someone else feel bad to make themselves feel relevant.

Ironically, cruelty will not make this country great, either. It didn’t make Hitler’s Germany great. It didn’t make Stalin’s Russia great. It hasn’t fed the North Koreans, either.

I’m still trying to wrap my mind around why anyone would choose to vote again for the guy who stole children from their parents’ arms. Some of those families have yet to be reunited. A better choice would be a president who asks Congress to fund the border, to make sure we have space for asylum seekers and a legal system to take care of claims in a timely manner.

America has made mistakes before. In ages of excess at the top, we haven’t always taken care of those at the bottom. Inequality makes the country less safe, and in the long run, less healthy and less prosperous.

Remember when the U.S. turned away a ship full of Jewish refugees? Many of them ended up dying in concentration camps.

We are human, so there will be mistakes, but we need to remind ourselves of past errors and take care not to make new ones, as well. The first step is to denounce cruelty in any form. When a candidate for any office shows an unwillingness to care for anyone but himself, who makes fun of people, who lies constantly, except when he accidently shows us who he is, the choice is clear: vote for someone else. Let cruel candidates know that their lack of care for anyone other than themselves makes them ineligible for your vote.

Vote for public servants who care for the people. And don’t be swayed by those who claim to be Godly but whose actions give them away.

Sometimes, we really do have to judge people by their character and their actions, especially when the future of this nation, even the world, is at stake.