I haven’t written for DeadState in a few months. I haven’t known what to say. Every piece of news requires me to take three deep breaths before I can really process it.

Today, our president was laughed at by other world leaders, and I take no joy in that. I think he’s a jackass and an idiot, but there can be no schadenfreude in that event for me. I am too tired.

Frankly, I’m not even mad at Donald Trump. He’s a buffoon and a predator who takes advantage of everyone who dared to be born with less privilege than he. He is a boor and a bully and an insecure little shit, but I have no wrath left for him.

I remember talking to friends and relatives about him during the election, thinking he was a joke and writing him off immediately. I heard conservatives tell me multiple times that he “says what others are thinking,” and I never could properly respond to that charge, because I never once believed Mexicans were rapists and murderers.

Civility in conversation went out the window right then, because if I said what I was thinking — that anyone who agreed with the guy was a racist and a misogynist and a shithead — I would lose those people in my life.

I’m furious I’ve been forced into that choice, but that is where we are today.

I watched the most powerful country in the world (no, I won’t argue best, but it’s hard to argue against most powerful) fall prey to one bad conspiracy theory after another, until we were held hostage proving basic universal truths (climate change is real; the Clintons did not have Seth Rich killed) instead of moving our nation forward.

I saw people willingly vote for a man who grabbed women by the pussy while saying there was just something they didn’t trust about Hillary Clinton.

But my rage now is reserved for the Republican Party. For the ones who were supposed to be reasonable, who are supposedly “establishment” or even “RINOs,” sit back and let this man tear down regulations to keep our most vulnerable people healthy and financially safe so he could make more money.

I’ve watched them say nothing about his rallies, nothing about not just the cruel things he says, but the nonsensical things. I’ve watched them validate why it would be worse for the country to remove him than to work around him, even if that waffles near the definition of treason.

I’ve watched a man accused of violent sexual assault be pushed through as aggressively as possible by this party of bad faith rhetoric, who bemoans the Democrats for turning this process into a circus as if none of us can even remember Merrick Garland.

I’m not defending Democrats. Or Hillary Clinton. Or anybody else. I’m simply furious with men like Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, the true Neros of this piece, who watch Rome burn because it’s the only way left for them to win.

Because winning is the most important thing. Not true governance. Not leadership. Not freedom or democracy or their own constituents. No, the GOP has turned into a party that wins at any cost.

These men know they’re doing the wrong thing, because they eagerly take advantage of the freak show Trump perpetuates to pass bills that will harm the very citizens they’ve promised to aid.

Children are still separated from their parents. Three-thousand people died in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Brett Kavanaugh has reveled in his frat boy schooling and shown absolutely no evidence he sees anything wrong with his past actions.

This party has become cruel. They have allowed their souls to rot from the inside out, made friendships with the most heinous kind of people, and talk about Jesus Christ and the depths of their own victimhood all the while.

When I was young, the two biggest identities in my life were being a Catholic and an American. I have not been Catholic for some time; the recent and tragic news from Pennsylvania comes as no surprise. But it is only in the past few months that I have been truly ashamed of being an American.

Featured image via Flickr