Where was the truth?

As a lifelong Republican, the last four years were agony for me listening to lie after lie, after lie, after lie, coming out of the White House, Trump rallies and Trump tweets. It all started in 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia, where former President Donald Trump opened the cult tent of Trumpism to White supremacists, Neo-Nazis, hate groups such as the “Proud Boys,” Oath Keepers and QAnon Doomsday Cult. Like Adolf Hitler, you tell the big lie long enough, you get people to believe you. I’ll focus on the two biggest lies that affected all Americans.

Big lie No. 1 was COVID-19 response.

“It’s more deadly than normal flus, and it is better for me to play it down and not panic the public,” he said in an interview with Bob Woodward early in the pandemic, and later on he said “It will disappear by July.”

If he had been honest and listened to his scientific advisers and developed a national attack on the easily spread virus, over 200,000 fewer people would have probably not died. That is genocide in my view for which he is personally responsible. And again, just before the November election, he said, “After Nov. 4, you’ll never hear the word ‘COVID’ again.”

Big lie No. 2 was the election results.

“If I lose, the election had to be rigged,” he said.

After the election that 50 governors – 27 Republicans – and secretaries of state certified Biden’s victory, he promised that “I will never concede.” If he had spoken the truth, Jan. 6 would not have happened. Even Chris Krebs, White House security chief said this was the most secure election in our country’s history. The hate groups that attacked the Capitol that day were attempting to overthrow our Constitution, even threatening to hang Vice President Mike Pence. These were not peaceful demonstrators but thugs from his hate groups who would do anything he asked, to which he said, “I love you.”

Jan. 6 was the final straw for me. I can never consider being a Republican anymore. If the Republican party is to remain a decent conservative party, they must get a divorce from Trump, who was never a Republican, but someone who hijacked the party.

Gordon Tinker