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After Donald Trump pardoned the Jan. 6 insurrectionists—many of whom (33) have already reoffended, including six rioters accused of committing sex crimes against children — I thought that it was just about the slimiest, sleaziest, most transparently treasonous act that a president could possibly commit. I thought that his followers would have to see through that one.

Wrong.

Then I thought that slamming The Pope after posting (then deleting) an image of himself as Christ-like on Truth Social, as well as having his name peppered throughout the Epstein Files—the ones that were released, that is—would finally put a stake through Trump.

I was wrong again. 

Maybe, I thought, razing the East Wing of the White House to build some gaudy ballroom would prove a bridge too far. Nope. How about holding a UFC fighting event on the White House South Lawn during Flag Day/Trump’s 80th birthday celebrations? This proved to be no biggie, either.

Then I thought that Americans might finally get fed up when he said that he was going to print his likeness on new $250 currency, despite an 1866 law preventing living people from appearing on currency. 

But MAGA didn’t seem to care that no living president has had the colossal audacity to suggest such a masturbatory act.

Then he recently weaponized the Department of Justice to seek his own petty vengeance on a woman who he was convicted in civil court of sexually assaulting, yet his supporters still proudly fly their Trump flags from the backs of their pickup trucks.

The MAGA movement likes to call what I’m writing about here a symptom of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS), but I am not deranged or creating any of this information in my own head. Sure, his cult members have been successful in convincing themselves that objective reality is “fake news” perpetuated by the liberal media, but anyone with eyes and ears knows this isn’t the case. 

Donald Trump is the most abjectly cruel, tasteless, smallest man to ever inhabit the White House, and it is now abundantly clear that this black hole of depravity is truly bottomless and it will suck the last shreds of decency from this country if we allow it.

And, by the way, this has nothing to do with politics. It is a healthy function in any democracy for people to debate and disagree on issues, such as school vouchers or healthcare reform, tax policies or immigration laws. 

But wanting to distance one’s self from Trump and his supporters is not about political dissension.

It is a fundamental disagreement about what it means to be a decent human being. It is a disagreement about character, and it has nothing to do with whether you identify as a Republican or a Democratic, or an Independent or a Libertarian, or Democratic Socialist or the only remaining member of the Whig Party.

It is about whether or not you believe that we are ethically bound to treat each other with a modicum of decency and empathy and kindness.

And it has become evermore difficult to understand how someone can still support a man who is this viciously bigoted and misogynistic and disparaging toward anyone who refuses to worship him. 

And it becomes evermore difficult to comprehend the amount of cognitive dissonance that must occur in order for someone to support Trump and his meanness, and still see themselves as decent people.

When I saw E. Jean Carroll’s name was in the news again and I heard that Trump was using his political power to try to re-ruin a woman who he has already sexual abused, I knew this still wasn’t the bottom. 

I knew, with this guy, there was no such thing.    

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 You can reach Nathan Graziano at ngrazio5@yahoo.com