Thread by @drvolts

I'm glad I don't have to write an endorsement piece, because I really wouldn't know how to go about it. Ever since 2015, when Trump descended the escalator, I have had the same feeling, which I've never quite seen articulated, so I will briefly try:

It's basically this: Trump is so obviously, manifestly repugnant -- his words, his gestures, his behavior, his history -- that it strikes me like a tsunami. It's a kind of total, perfect, seamless repugnance that I've never witnessed before in my life. Which means ...

... pointing out some particular piece of the repugnance & arguing against it feels ... surreal, I guess. "He has regularly sexually assaulted women, almost certainly raped a few, and ... I think that's bad."

Yeah. I mean, I think rape is bad. But here's the thing ...

... if you think rape is bad, you will already oppose Trump. If you don't, what could I possibly say to reach you? I don't understand your moral universe, your basic precepts. We are different in a way so fundamental that I literally don't know how to speak to you.

It's the same with all of it. I could point to some obvious bit of repugnance -- "I think it's bad to cheat every small business you interact with." -- but ... it's obvious. You've surely see it yourself. And it doesn't matter to you. So how is me pointing it out going to help?

You see what I'm getting at? I feel like there's nothing I can say about Trump that isn't obvious, that isn't well-understood public knowledge. If you still support him at this point, you clearly don't *care* about tall that stuff. And if you don't care about all that stuff ...

... then ... what do you care about? How does your brain operate? What does morality mean to you? What language could possibly reach you? What could cause you to care? I genuinely don't know. It's like when you're trying to speak w/ someone who doesn't speak your language ...

... and you respond by just repeating yourself, louder. "HE'S A CAREER CRIMINAL WITH 34 FELONY CONVICTIONS." It's pointless. They *heard* you. They just don't understand, don't care. You're assuming they share the premise "criminal rapists are bad," but they don't.

And so, if you're that far apart -- if you do not share basic, fundamental moral precepts, if you live in different moral universes -- how can you communicate? Literally, what do you say?

So I could write the 5000th piece once again listing Trump's sins -- "He's explicitly said he loves dictators & wants to be one!" -- but they've all been listed a million times. His supporters don't care. And I wouldn't know what to write to make someone care or be decent.

That's where I've been ever since 2015: feeling like language is pointless. Like the reality I inhabit is so far from the reality Trump supporters inhabit that discourse between us is impossible, or at least futile. The divide is unbridgeable.

This is a genuinely depressing & unsettling place to be for someone whose whole *life* is words, who was raised & trained to believe that language can, with care & attention, bridge any gap, excavate & find commonalities among any people, no matter how far apart.

Anyway. I just wanted to get that feeling down. Maybe some of you feel it too.

In the meantime, my grand manifesto against electing Trump amounts to this:

[points at Trump]