Donald Trump vanished from public view for about four days recently, and speculation swirled that maybe—just maybe—he had finally croaked. Social media lit up with thoughts and prayers: Please let it be true. Which raises the uncomfortable but obvious question: what’s so wrong with wishing a man dead?
When I was a little girl, I sometimes screeched that I hated one of my siblings. My Methodist mother, clutching her pearls, would immediately scold: “WE DO NOT HATE.” Which left me agonizing, because clearly I did hate. What in hell was I supposed to do with it? If hatred was off the table, then I must’ve been a terrible little person for feeling it. Meanwhile, church drilled into me every Sunday that I had to love my neighbor, which apparently extended to the annoying kids who occupied the other bedrooms down the hall.
Grown-up me has been lectured in much the same way for wishing that Donald Trump would shuffle off this mortal coil. But unlike my childhood self, I no longer feel guilt. None. Zero. Less than zero. If hating him is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.
Here’s the thing: hate is just an emotion. Like joy, fear, or sadness. It doesn’t make you evil—it makes you human. You don’t get to control whether it shows up—you just decide what to do with it. For example, I love brussels sprouts (especially roasted with olive oil and a touch of maple syrup—yum), but you may hate brussels sprouts. Does your hatred change the intrinsic value of the vegetable? Nope. But I promise not to serve them if you come over for dinner.
Unless I hate you.
Now, if you march into the grocery store and spit all over the brussels sprouts, I’ll still defend your right to hate them, but I’ll also point out that your actions are disgusting, and you’ll be paying for all those sprouts. Hate the sprouts all you want, but don’t act like an asshole in the produce section.
Maybe you wish that all brussels sprouts would just die on the vine. Fair enough, but you simply don’t have the power to make that happen. And honestly, if collective hatred had the power to kill, Donald Trump would have been pushing daisies before he came down that tacky golden escalator ten years ago. There’s no shortage of psychic bullets aimed his way. The fact that he’s still lumbering around like a rotting T-rex would be proof enough that thoughts and prayers don’t actually work.
So really, what harm is there in chilling a bottle of champagne and warming ourselves with thoughts and prayers?
I acknowledge there are always a few unhinged individuals who act on their hatred. That is deeply wrong. But let’s be honest—if America didn’t treat guns like Happy Meal toys, we wouldn’t have to live in terror of every angry loner with a grudge. But I digress. Most of us are harmless armchair assassins killing nothing more than time—or the occasional fly.
And frankly, flies are far less diseased and dangerous than the so-called leader of the free world.
Here’s another truth: even people who say they want to die don’t usually want death itself. They want the pain to stop. They want relief and they see no other way except to die. That’s exactly what most of us want from Trump. Not necessarily that he depart in a coffin, just that he depart. Send him to Ivanka and Jared’s private island where, like them, he will fade into oblivion. I’d toast to that.
The problem is the man refuses to go away. Instead he doubles down. He is hatred weaponized, a malignant narcissist with cankles. Wreaking havoc on everything, everywhere, all at once. And the idea that we should feel guilty for hating him? Spare me.
He’ll never give up the throne. Which leaves death as the only option. That doesn’t make us barbarians—it makes us pragmatists.
We just want to stop the suffering—for ourselves, and for all the people on the receiving end of his bottomless, irrational hatred. Unlike the rest of us, Trump doesn’t just feel hatred—he lives it. The entire point of his comeback tour is to annihilate anyone who refuses to snorkel his massive behind and anything that triggers his Biden/Obama derangement syndrome.
So yes, I pray for Donald Trump. I pray that he disappears, poof!–like a miracle. I pray that his grip loosens, that he becomes irrelevant. Alive or unalive. And if my mother were still here, I highly suspect—just this once—and with no clutching of pearls—she’d raise a glass with me.
Kvetchin With Gretchen 