...so, I’ve held my tongue long enough

I’ve watched, I’ve read, I’ve rolled my eyes, I’ve sighed so hard I’m surprised I still have breath in my lungs. But after this latest Trump-Zelenskyy-Vance White House debacle, I can’t stay quiet anymore.

The right have always loved their moral panics—from reds under the bed, yellow peril, and islamophobia to drag queens, pronouns, Disney, Budweiser, vaccine mandates, Mr. Potato Head, critical race theory, The Little Mermaid remake, banning library books, and whichever corporate logo had the audacity to use a rainbow during Pride Month. But the one thing they never seem too panicked about? A man who, time and time again, has proven he has no actual morals.

What happened in the Oval Office wasn’t diplomacy. It wasn’t leadership. It was an ego trip, a self-serving spectacle, and a reminder that Trump is exactly who he’s always been: a man who lacks even the basic ability to acknowledge someone else’s suffering unless there’s something in it for him. The war in Ukraine? Just an inconvenience, an opportunity to exploit a stricken nation. Zelenskyy? Just another foreigner in the room he had to tolerate. The presidency? Just another tool in his arsenal of self-promotion—which, at this point, should also include a Get Out of Jail Free card.

And yet, people still pretend otherwise. But to me, Trump, is a moral vacuum.

He is a transactionalist. With Trump, everything is a deal. Everything is what’s in it for me? If there’s nothing to be gained—whether financially, politically, or through the kind of cult-like devotion that keeps his ego afloat—he’s not interested.

And we’ve seen this exact routine before. This is the same man who praises dictators and strongmen because he likes them, and they like him—not because it benefits the country. The same guy who would throw American allies under the bus the second it was inconvenient to stand by them or because they are "delinquent". The same man whose “America First” foreign policy was really just “Trump First, and screw everyone else.”

So no, it wasn’t shocking to watch him sit in that room with Zelenskyy, bored, dismissive, visibly impatient, as if Ukraine’s entire existence was an annoying side quest in his never-ending mission to Make Everything About Trump.

What was shocking? That people still expect anything else.

But what about the Russia question? For years, people have been asking it: Is Trump just Putin’s useful idiot, or is he actually compromised? At this point, does it even matter?

As Craig Unger laid out in American Kompromat, there’s an entire body of evidence suggesting that Trump didn’t just stumble into Russian influence—he was cultivated.

“For more than 40 years, Donald Trump has benefited from Russian money and political support, a relationship that looks less like mere opportunism and more like an ongoing operation.” (Unger, 2021)

Russian oligarchs funneling millions into Trump properties? Check. 

Trump’s decades-long financial entanglements with sketchy foreign figures? Check. 

And let’s not forget, the fact that every major foreign policy decision he made just happened to align with Kremlin interests? Check.

All wrapped up by the threat of the infamous pee tape! Well, let’s just say, for a guy who screams “fake news” at everything, he’s awfully sensitive about that one. 

At a certain point, you don’t need a conspiracy theory. You just need basic pattern recognition. I grew up in faith circles. I know how this works. The pressure to stay quiet, to go along, to not ask too many questions. I always felt uneasy about the evangelical embrace of Trump. But I couldn’t say it—for fear of losing friends, for fear of losing favour, for fear of being labelled as someone who had “gone to the other side.”

...so, I’m sorry. 

I’m sorry if I’ve offended you and your beliefs about his orange highness. Truly. I know for some, supporting him is tied to deep convictions—about faith, about for such a time as this, about what you think is at stake. I know you believe all things work together for good, and I respect that. But I also know that not everything that happens is good, and not everything should be excused just because it fits into some larger, unknowable plan.

But I just refuse to pretend anymore.

I can’t do the mental gymnastics required to reconcile a man who brags about sexual assault, mocks disabled people, throws his own allies under the bus, separates children from their parents, and literally suggested terminating the US Constitution with someone who is supposedly part of a divine plan. I’m done pretending that the left is bad, the right is good. That’s not logic. That’s not faith. That’s tribalism, and I won’t play along.

If “Christian values” can make space for cruelty, corruption, deception, and self-serving power, but not for compassion, truth, and justice, then I have to ask—what exactly is being valued?

This latest Oval Office fiasco isn’t an outlier—it’s who he is. The same man who called neo-Nazis “very fine people.” The same man who tear-gassed peaceful protesters for a photo op with a Bible he didn’t read.The same man who built his movement on persecuting others while crying about his own “persecution.” This is the grift of Trumpism—where cruelty isn’t a flaw, it’s the point.

His performance with Zelenskyy was just another day in the life of a man whose only loyalty is to himself. Who sees war as a sideshow, human suffering as an afterthought, and the presidency as just another way to feed his ego.

He appears to be a moral vacuum—an idea that only exists in his own…a' Brain—A malignant narcissist, completely detached from reality, yet somehow still convinced of his own greatness and, in true tragic vanity, always with a distinctly burnt-orange hue.

I’m done keeping quiet to keep the peace. I’ve spent years biting my tongue, telling myself that people would surely see through it, that the weight of his corruption would eventually collapse in on itself. But silence only serves the powerful. It enables the deception. It emboldens the worst instincts of the worst people.

...so I won’t be silent anymore. I won’t pretend this is normal. I won’t make space for the idea that this is some grand strategy, some necessary evil, some divine reckoning.

...so I can’t keep silent.  Yep, there’s a moral vacuum and a moral panic…let’s be real—the only thing worth panicking about is whether Trump has ever had any morals at all. 

Unger, C. (2021). American Kompromat: How the KGB cultivated Donald Trump, and related tales of sex, greed, power, and treachery. Dutton.