I wrote 101 reasons to oppose Trump in 2016. But I wanted to do a similar list for this election– ie reasons based on what has happened since the 2016 election. You can see the 2016 list here. I will also be posting 101 reasons to vote against Biden and reasons to vote for Trump and Biden.
1. He’s 74 years old
2. He pardons and defends war criminals.
3.
4. His promotion of hydroxychloroquine during the COVID-19 pandemic.
5. No, viruses do not just disappear.
6. Long history of comments praising China’s handling of COVID-19
7. His administration’s early opposition to mask wearing. Even once the administration’s official position changed, he has personally been ambivalent on them.
8. The government’s general response to COVID-19 cost tens of thousands of lives.
9. “So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light — and I think you said that that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you’re going to test that too. It sounds interesting. And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. So, that, you’re going to have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds — it sounds interesting to me. So we’ll see. But the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute, that’s — that’s pretty powerful.” – President Donald Trump, April 23, 2020
10. I included multiple jokes in this. Somehow, this is not one of them: “During a tense meeting at the White House in June, President Trump caught Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe off guard with a pointed remark. “I remember Pearl Harbor,” the president said, referring to the surprise attack that propelled the United States into World War II.”
11. Nor was this a joke.
12. Meeting with Kim Jong-Un twice. It handed the North Korean regime one of its biggest foreign policy goals in exchange for literally nothing.
13. His North Korean policy in general has been an absolute failure. Its basically been concession after concession by the US while North Korea has only built up its nuclear arsenal.
14. Ending the INF and New START treaties.
15. Withdrawing from the Iran Nuclear Deal. It gave Iran the green light to build its nuclear arsenal.
16. Trying to put the G7 at his resort.
17. His general petty corruption to enrich himself by funneling government money to his personal properties. For example, this or this or this.
18. And his petty corruption to settle scores.
19. And don’t forget the nepotism! There is a LOT of nepotism. Ivanka is an assistant to the president and Jared a senior adviser for no other reason than they are related. Trump gave Jared a security clearance even when security officials thought he was too risky. They have a massive amount of influence they don’t deserve. See this example:
The first test of Ivanka’s persuasive powers came when White House officials began drafting an executive order focused on expanding protections for religious conservatives. Ivanka, who knew the order would be seen as anti-LGBTQ, enlisted Tim Cook—the gay Apple CEO, whose respect her father craved—to lobby Trump against signing it, according to a former White House aide. She also privately reminded her father that Vice President Mike Pence had faced nasty political blowback when he’d stumbled into a religious-freedom culture war as governor of Indiana.
Ivanka’s crusade culminated one night in the president’s private study, where Trump was discussing the issue with a small group of advisers. A former aide who was present at the meeting recalled Pence launching into an impassioned defense of the executive order, only to have Trump cut him off. “Mike, isn’t this the shit that got you in trouble in Indiana?” he snapped. Pence quickly retreated as blood rushed to his face. It was clear to all in the room that Ivanka—standing quietly in the corner—had won. When Trump did eventually sign the order, it had been dramatically watered down.
20. He lacks a clear understanding of the limits of his power as shown by apparent belief he can lift lockdowns imposed by state governments.
21. He’s basically an egyptian policeman– “his approach to power is roughly what you’d expect if you took an Egyptian policeman under Mubarak and suddenly made him president. “How can I enrich myself?” “How can I look strong?” “Let’s send the police into a public square to remove the people so that I can wave my religious book around for the cameras.”
22. As Ross Douthas wrote, he seems only interested in attention– “Trump clearly lacks both the facility and the interest level required to find opportunity in crisis… but our president is interested in power only as a means of getting attention. Which is why, tellingly, his most important virus-related power grab to date has been the airtime grab of his daily news conferences ”
23. Using the federal government to violently clearLafayette Park so he can have a photo op in front of a church with a Bible is the perfect illustration of the above two quotes.
24. He’s literally orange
25. He wants to ban flag burning and throw people in jail for it. He does realize the first amendment is still a thing?
26. His insistence that NFL kneeling protests are about the national anthem and not racial injustice.
27. “Very fine people on both sides.” There were Nazis on one side.
28. His trade war and patriotism taxes.
29. I actually do wonder if Trump thinks foreign government pays tariffs
30. Replacing NAFTA with the USMCA– which is NAFTA 2.0 but with more protectionism.
31. He backed Roy Moore even after credible accusations of sexual assault on multiple minors.
32. His rigorous defense of confederate monuments.
33. His opposition to renaming military bases which are named after confederate traitors. He’s even threatening to veto the NDAA.
34. The Ukraine fiasco. Presidents using their power to try to harm their political opponents is a bad thing. He absolutely should have been impeached and convicted for it.
35. Leaving the Kurds to be ethnically cleansed. All he had to do was let some US Marines sit in a bad in Northern Syria.
36. Helping Saudi Arabia commit a genocide in Yemen.
37. Being silent on the genocide in China. He held up sanctions over the concentration camps to help with a trade deal. John Bolton even claims he is supportive of them– “At the opening dinner of the Osaka G-20 meeting in June 2019, with only interpreters present, Xi had explained to Trump why he was basically building concentration camps in Xinjiang. According to our interpreter, Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do. The National Security Council’s top Asia staffer, Matthew Pottinger, told me that Trump said something very similar during his November 2017 trip to China.”
38. He’s buddy buddy with every significant authoritarian dictator (Xi, Putin, Erdogan, and Kim) while being hostile to most democratic US allies.
39. He reportedly wanted to invade Venezuela. He also reportedly regretted backing Juan Guaidó in Venezuela and wanted a summit with Maduro.
40. NeverTrump republicans are “human scum”! Seems healthy.
41. Don’t worry, it’s not just NeverTrumpers who get constant vicious attacks. It’s everyone who is mean to him.
42. Pushing conspiracies about Joe Scarboro
43. Calling the media the enemy of the people. Apparently, he even said they should be executed in private.
44. Anti-semetic tropes about Jewish Democrats.
45. Accusing Obama of treason
46. Actually, he uses the word treason too much
47. Not firing people he doesn’t like and griefing them on Twitter instead.
48. “Trump has a strange habit sometimes of acting like he’s not already president, especially when one of his own handpicked personnel choices betrays him somehow.” –Allahpundit
49. He might be part of an evil organization.
50. He’s against qualified immunity reform.
51. The exploding debt and deficit.
52. Failed promise: repeal and replace Obamacare
53. Failed promise: Hillary Hasn’t been locked up
54. Failed promise: stopping North Korea from getting an ICBM capable of hitting the US
55. Failed promise: building the wall and having Mexico pay for it.
56. His solution to keep that promise? After Congress wouldn’t give him funds to build a wall, he decided to declare a national emergency so he could just ignore that pesky constitution.
57. Bringing back the federal death penalty
58. The bump stock ban
59. We are governed by economic illiterates
60. “If you got in a time machine, went back to 2016, went on Sean Hannity’s show, and said by 2020 the Supreme Court would put transgenderism and sexual orientation into Title VII without Congress, Obamacare was not only still legal but expanded, churches could not meet, socialists had taken over part of Seattle, the economy had cratered, Planned Parenthood is funded, and the national debt was bordering $30 trillion, Hannity would insist the only way to prevent all of that and more was to elect Donald Trump. And yet…” –Eric Ericson
61. I don’t know why it would get better in a second term, he has no clear agenda.
62. He’s basically a republican AOC
63. But at least he has plenty of “executive time” to Tweet
64. And time to golf a ton. Remember, that’s only a problem when Obama does it.
65. He’s the embodiment of stupid chaos
66. The inauguration crowd size stupidity
67. Or the stupid hurricane map sharpie incident
68. He also just makes shit up on the regular
69. Gotta be honest, I’m not sure he understands the F-35 isn’t invisible. He probably does, but I’m not 100% sure.
70. I’d like to go 48 hours without hearing about the President again.
71. For example, I don’t want to hear that the President leaked classified intelligence to the Russian Foreign Minister in the Oval Office.
72. Trump removing troops from Europe. The remilitarization of Europe or Russian preponderance on the continent are the two most likely options. Both suck.
73. He watched the Gorilla Channel
74. He threatens NATO
75. His summit with Vladmir Putin.
76. He makes important decisions based on reelection
77. He avoids the Senate confirmation requirement by usings tons of “acting X”. This is nothing more than a way to avoid accountability from Congress and stack powerful agencies with his cronies. For example, as I write this, the top 3 officials at DHS are acting officials and DHS has been without a Senate confirmed head for about 500 days. Why bother with the constitution when you can just appoint people who will be loyal to you?
78. In fairness, that’s because the administration forced the third highest ranked official at DHS to resign so a Trump crony could take over. This is a common practice throughout the administration. The GAO found the people he appointed to be illegitimate but no one will care.
79. His DHS sent unidentified agents dressed in tactical gear and camo (for no other reason than intimidation) to grab people off the street and throw them in unmarked vans. They are also pretty violent. Too KGBesque to be in the US.
80. Playing footsie with qanon nutjobs.
81. Who needs daily intelligence briefings when you’re President? According to the Washington Post “he rarely if ever reads the President’s Daily Brief”. The New York Times reports “he has a short attention span and rarely, if ever, reads intelligence reports, relying instead on conservative media and his friends for information.” At least he looks at pretty pictures.
82. He wanted to host a radio show during the pandemic but didn’t because it would interfere with Rush Limbaugh.
83. This. It’s too sad to summarize.
84. His rally in Tulsa and Arizona during the COVID-19 pandemic.
85.
86.
87. Like many on the right, I disliked it when Obama used congressional inaction as justification for executive action. Unlike many on the right, I still dislike it even when someone on “my side” does it and for a cause I support.
88. I want a President who believes in freedom and isn’t okay with authoritarianism.
89. His corrosive effect on the Republican party.
90. This isn’t racist at all
91. His administration has a terrible record on private property rights.
92. He salutes officers of evil foreign regimes.
93. He’s laughed at by other world leaders
94. I could fill this list with things from John Bolton’s book. I already used a few.
95. Trump using the DOJ to try and block Bolton’s book from being published
96. Biden is kinda running an anti-progressive / traditional liberal campaign. Supporting it would be a rejection of the progressive revolution.
97. His performance in the first debate was childish at best.
98. Refusing to accept losing in the first Presidential debate
99. Embracing right wing violence in the first Presidential debate
100. Downplaying COVID-19 even after he got it and after over 200,000 Americans have died from it.
101. His defeat might end the Nationalist-Populist/Trumpist experiment on the right. Seeing the Qanon morons try to wrap their heads around it would be hilarious.
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