The Worst Thing Donald Trump Did To This Country

Donald Trump did many terrible things to the United States while living in our White House.

He increased his wealth through fraud and dishonesty. He Put us (and the World) in danger by kowtowing to Putin and Russia. He told over 30,000 lies. He tried to subvert an election and have himself declared the winner -- even though he lost by over 7 million votes. And he caused an insurrection by encouraging his supporters to attack Congress.

Any of those things alone would have been sufficient to make him the worst president in American history. But he did something even worse. He divided the country by encouraging hate.

He did it by example in the way he treated women. He did it in speeches when he called right-wing haters "good people" and demonized immigrants trying to come to America. Trump was a non-repentant misogynist, homophobe, xenophobe, antisenite, and racist. And by occupying our White House, he gave comfort to the worst among us -- the haters.

For a few decades, it had seemed this country was moving in a good direction. Americans were more accepting of each other, and hate was pushed underground. There were still too many haters, but it was uncomfortable for them to do that in public -- so they crawled under their rocks. 

Sadly, that is no longer true. When hate inhabited our White House (in the person of Donald Trump), it told the haters they could once again be bold and open with their hate. And far too often this newly exposed hate was shown with violence. Hate crimes of all kind reached record levels in 2022.

We now have a decent man in the White House, but the hate encouraged by Trump seems to be continuing to grow. It is time for decent Americans to step forward and drive it back underground (if not completely out of existence). And it's time for the Justice Department to stop the hate-inspired violence by indicting and convicting the haters -- and giving them long prison sentences.

We cannot let Trump and his haters win. Do so would destroy this country. We are a nation of immigrants and their descendants, and we have to learn to live together.