Bad People

During the 2016 campaign, I opined that anyone who would vote for an explicitly racist, bigoted misogynist who showed no understanding of important issues or the basic functioning of government was a bad person. An acquaintance took umbrage because he knew some of those people, they were his friends, and he knew they weren’t bad people, even if he didn’t agree with their choice. They were mothers and fathers, hard-workers and taxpayers, good Christians who helped their communities and treated people with respect. He had a point.

I didn’t admit to being wrong (because who does that) but further clarified my statement. No person is entirely good or bad; we are all made up of positive traits and negative ones, with a balance that shifts and a rather arbitrary line that demarks one side from the other. It is quite possible to commit a bad act and yet have enough good deeds to make up for such an error. I should have said that voting for such a horrible person, giving an ignorant buffoon such power over our lives and the world we live in, was a truly awful act, but that one act, no matter how reprehensible, did not determine the balance of a person’s soul. As my acquaintance so desperately wanted to believe: they could still be good people.

But that was before the election, before the very clear evidence of exactly what the presidency of such a petulant man-child would look like. Now we know. I’ll say once again: anyone who supports the administration, the racist policies, the dismantling of our social safety net, the disregard for the basic rule of law and principles of democracy, is a bad person.

Let me expand. Their support is bad in the good vs. evil sense of the action, but as I stated earlier a single action cannot define a person’s totality. They may very well have a lot of good in them. But bad also refers to quality, of the good vs. poor kind. If someone can look at the past six months and not realize how awful it has been, who doesn’t see the danger in our executive branch obstructing  investigations into their own criminal behavior, who can’t recognize the constant lies and misinformation, who won’t admit the hate and harm coming from the head of our government - well, that’s a bad person. They are bad at being a person. They are a failure at adulting.

Being a person, as opposed to an animal, requires thought and reasoning, a sense of our own sentience, and an understanding of the basic facts of reality in our world. If you can’t think on your own and simply believe the lies coming from the White House and its many right-wing propaganda arms, you are a disgrace to your own humanity. I know it’s a sweeping pronouncement, I know it includes a significant portion of our populace, and many of those folks do, indeed, possess positive traits and contribute to good in the world. But incompetence on this basic level, and never in my lifetime has there been a case of government evil so basic and understandable as our current situation, is simply inexcusable. Anyone exercising even a small amount of gray matter put towards understanding how we got here, what is happening, and how much harm is being done to millions and millions of people, could not fail to see the error in our electoral choice. This is bad, the people who support it are bad. But they could change.

The thing about being bad at something is it also implies the ability to improve. You can get better if you work at it. Read some history. Study some economics. All you need is the basics, simple understanding of accepted facts. Then listen to the words of your neighbors. Read mainstream (and historically accurate) sources. Stop repeating the lies and talking points. Become a better human being and join the rest of the world in repudiating the hatred and ignorance that comes from our Commander in Chief. We all can do better. We can be good people.