Dear Trump Supporter

A Recommendation to Safeguard Your Future

Feel free to forward to Trump supporters in your life.

I want to start by saying that I’m not going to judge you in this letter for your support of Donald Trump.

What I am going to do is invite you to consider that it may not be in your best interest to pull the lever for him if you haven’t voted yet.

Here’s why: For a LOT of our country, Trump is perceived as a traumatic and dangerous figure. People feel very unsafe at the idea of a future with him at the helm of the United States’ vast power. He can be combative, vengeful, and rule-breaking. Given the lessons learned from his previous administration, he now better understands how to use his his power against his enemies, including political and cultural enemies. Statistically he uses violent themes more often now than he did in previous campaigans, with more vulgarities and more threats.

So there’s a legitimate fear he could weaponize aspects of the federal government’s power against people he perceives to be his domestic enemies, which includes a lot of people. It’s a threat he’s been making directly.

There are also reasons for voters to be concerned Trump is declining mentally based on the growing simplification of his vocabulary, sentence complexity, and more. There are more lapses and odd mistakes, which journalists have chronicled. Even supportive allies say he has lost stamina.

Giving a nearly 80 year old man who may be in physical, emotional, and cognitive decline, and who has proven himself unpredictable and emotional, virtually unlimited power is a move that creates real risks for our country and our communities, ranging from threats to our security to threats to our economy.

In addition to societal risks, Trump offers a strong resemblance for many women and some men, of bullying or abusive men they have experienced in their lives. So his presence, words, and deeds act as a re-traumatizing force in their daily lives.

So a second term with him as President would make a good percenteage of our country feel unsafe quite often. That will be true even if he doesn’t enact the darker scenarios that people fear. And if he does unleash the darker scenario…then all bets are off.

I would love for you to see, deep in your heart, that there is a real chance that those who are saying he has fascist tendencies, including John Kelley, his former chief of staff and General Mark A. Milley, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, are correct that there are dangers to our security, economy, and government to entrust him again with American power.

You may not worry about the risk as much they are, but I think you’ll acknowledge that if people who know his decision-making very well say that he has strong anti-democratic tendencies, that means there’s a chance his Presidency could slide into authoritarianism and undermine the rule of law.

The actual risk cannot be zero, given the testimonies of those close to him.

To use the analogy of Russian Roulette, the question is whether there are 4 bullets in the chambers or only 1 before the spin. No savvy bettor is going to say the risk is zero. January 6th proved there is risk.

Circling back with your future, what if you vote for Donald Trump and are part of getting him back into office and the chamber of Russian Roulette spins and comes up with a bullet? In this scenario, Trump pulls American democracy into a version of American fascism, and he implements increasingly draconian interventions and suspends key freedoms.

Maybe the chance is only 10% but let’s say it happens.

In such a scenario, Trump could co-opt the courts, overpower the legistlature and bring the military and business world to heel by handing out crony business from the government. It is well known that he admires Putin and Putin has done this in Russia: consolidate all state power into the hands of one man.

I think you’d agree there are some real problems for our country if that came to pass. Virutualy no one is moving to Russia or China because in such a system, the masses are used by the elite for purposes of accruing economic, military, or political power. In such systems, you must pay tribute to the centralized powers to succeed, which leads to economic stagnation, political corruption and hopelessness in the governed.

That kind of state-driven authoritarianism would be stiffling to American innovation and leadership in the world as it creates a culture of fear, which inhibits creativity. It’s why America always outperforms authoritarian systesms in the end: our freedom empowers our courage and fuels our creatitivity. Shutting down our freedoms would slow the American economic engine and reduce our standing in the world.

Coming back to your vote. Your vote is your participation in the election of Donald Trump. If you do vote for him and end up with a scenario where he does real damage to American democracy, then you will have a lifelong burden to carry by virtue of your association with his election. It could thus become a badge of embarrassment or even shame.

And even if we only get the scenario where a good percentage of Americans are living in fear of him and therefore feeling fundamentally unsafe for four years, you will still bear some of the responsibility for their suffering. They may, I believe, see you as part of their ongoing trauma and trust you less.

So potential business collaborators, friends, romatic interests, and allies who didn’t support Trump and have negative feelings about him, may withhold their acceptance of you professionally or personally.

What I’m saying is that it may be unwise to carry a burden where more than half the population (counting non-voters) see you as partially accountable for a difficult ongling experience and as someone that they can’t trust personally.

Even if we don’t get a full fascist scenario and got something more akin to his first administration, that even in that case, close to 50% of the country may not feel as safe around you, which could impact the quality of at least some of your professional and personal relationships for years to come.

Withholding your vote is not going to affect the end result of the election by itself, unless your state comes down to a single vote. But it will exempt you from partial responsibility if things go badly.

So I would recommend going ahead and doing your civic duty by voting but leave the top of the ticket blank, if you really can’t support Kamala, to say that you don’t have adequate confidence that Trump is a safe enough choice for the Oval Office.

You would not be making a vote for someone you don’t feel good about supporting but you would remove yourself from partial responsibility for what Trump does moving forward You abstention is a half vote for both sides. Doing so means you don’t have partial accountability for Trump’s future actions because you can honestly say, “I didn’t vote for him.”

Withholding your vote is a kind of personal insurance policy when dealing with someonce as unpredictable as Donald Trump can be. You don’t have to even tell anyone right now. If the time comes, it’s just in your back pocket.

In the last week alone, Trump threatened a fellow Republican, Liz Cheney, with execution, hosted a rally in which Puerto Rico was called a “a pile of garbage.” He stood on stage livid in Wisconsin about his microphone and talked about knocking around the people backstage. He has made multiple recent statements about domestic enemies.

Trump is volatile and breaks laws. He wants more power and is angry at those who block him. That creates real risks and potential chaos for our country, as we saw on January 6th.

Do you truly want the United States of America to take this risk so much that you jeoardize your own future community goodwill and relationships if things don’t turn out well?

If you leave your Presidential voting box blank, I think you’ll be happier when all is said and done. It’s the safer choice for you personally and for our country.

Best,

Stephen Dinan