Free Software Foundation receives historic private donations — Free Software Foundation — Working together for free software

Marcus Adams (@gerowen)

A note on the deepening political division within the United States. We’ve been divided, and it has been worsening, for a long time, but I think the last presidential election has jaded a LOT of people into just giving up. In past elections, I may not have always agreed with the other side, but I understood it. I may not have voted for Mitt Romney, but I could see why people did. I didn’t vote for Barack Obama, but I could understand why others did. And in all of those situations, while I may have disagreed with the political stances of whoever won, I didn’t doubt that they had the best interests of America at heart, whether I agreed with their methods or not. Donald Trump, on the other hand, is a sexual predator and egomaniac. The only thing he cares about is himself. His rhetoric and straight up intentional falsehoods got people killed in an attempted violent overthrow of the 2020 election. He’s actively suppressing content that implicates him in the Epstein files. His insistence on picking a fight with our friends and befriending our enemies has caused economic uncertainty the likes of which we haven’t seen in my lifetime, and the breakdown of alliances that run contrary to Vladimir Putin’s worldview. And the problem is, it’s not that we didn’t know. It’s not like he was some unknown who got elected based on empty promises and disappointed us after the fact. Hell, I voted for him in 2016. But by this time around, he was already president once before. And yet half of America (more than half of those who voted), having looked at all the evidence and the options afforded them, CHOSE the sexual deviant, egomaniac. They CHOSE the one who has blatantly circumvented constitutional law, harmed American businesses and gotten people killed to protect his own ego. In the past, I might not have “agreed” with those who voted differently than me, but I “understood” it. There has been and always will be disagreement around politics; the racist uncle at holiday gatherings is literally a meme. We will never all agree on everything, but we’ve always been able to come to a sort of generally accepted consensus around our place in the world. I cannot however understand anybody who votes for somebody whose whole mission as president seems to be to destroy and divide America instead of uniting and building it up. Even when Donald Trump leaves office, how can I look at people like that in the eye and respect anything they have to say? You cannot tell me you believe in the rule of law when you voted for a convicted felon. You cannot tell me you’re against drug cartels when you support a president who regularly pardons high profile drug traffickers if they’re politically friendly towards him. You can’t tell me you’re anti-pedophile when you support a man who once called Jeffrey Epstein one of his best friends and is actively redacting mention and photos of himself from documents related to the investigation. You don’t get to brag about America being crucial to ending World War 2 when you support a president who is actively dismantling the alliances built in the aftermath of that war that have maintained some semblance of a world order in the 80-odd years since. If we can’t even agree on the fundamental truths of reality, I don’t see how we can ever be reunited as a country. It’s one thing to disagree on whether we should tax or tariff this or that, how much money this or that institution should get, etc., but when you vote for people who are actively making American life worse, who don’t believe certain groups have the right to exist, who censor anything they disagree with, tariff American businesses into oblivion and who go against everything you claim to stand for, what in the world are the rest of us supposed to make of that?