{"id":4119,"date":"2026-07-29T22:36:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T22:36:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=4119"},"modified":"2026-07-29T22:36:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T22:36:31","slug":"the-2016-trump-joke-that-sparked-a-national-reckoning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=4119","title":{"rendered":"The 2016 Trump joke that sparked a national reckoning"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

On Tuesday afternoon, I clocked into my Facebook page and it proceeded to pester me about things I was going on about 10 years ago to the day \u2014 or about the time Donald Trump began taking up space in my life.<\/p>\n

Read more Rebellion against \u2018oblivious\u2019 Trump tanks Dow in worst day of the year<\/a><\/p>\n

I still wasn\u2019t taking him seriously as a man, much less a presidential candidate, because I lived comfortably in a haughty world where America was above electing someone that unqualified and disgusting to our highest office.<\/p>\n

He was the punchline of all of my jokes. In this particular post, I was admonishing people who were comparing Republicans\u2019 creation of Trump to Dr. Frankenstein\u2019s creation of his monster, saying, \u201cHey, at least one of them had a heart \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

By now, Trump was regularly insulting women, NATO, the disabled, war veterans, Blacks, Mexico, the working press, and common decency. He was openly asking Russia for help, bragging of assaulting women because he could, and had filled his campaign staff with social outcasts, political wannabes, and known racists. <\/p>\n

The KKK was on the record as absolutely loving the guy.<\/p>\n

GOP candidates like Jeb Bush, who was insulted off the 2016 debate stage, had started to go silent, deciding to let the voters handle the dirty work he helped produce, but would no longer touch with his upper-crust, lily-white fingers. <\/p>\n

Phonies like the late Sen. Lindsey Graham offered up his last known proof of life when he infamously tweeted this on May 3, 2016:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed\u2026\u2026and we will deserve it.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

By the end of that year, and after Trump had won the election, he called Graham \u201ca little boy\u201d \u2026 \u201cnasty\u201d \u2026 and \u201ca dumb mouthpiece\u201d \u2026 prompting South Carolina\u2019s finest to dutifully become Trump\u2019s little errand boy in their service to hell, instead of America.<\/p>\n

Real damn irony then that it\u2019s Graham who beat Trump to their ultimate destination.<\/p>\n

I reckon they\u2019ll be reacquainted soon enough \u2026<\/p>\n

The summer before the November blast that would shake America to its core, was the last time I felt sure about anything.<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t been the same since.<\/p>\n

I take no real pride in admitting that, but when Trump won that election, the country I had served with my life looked very, very different to me. It was darker, and never to be trusted to do the right thing again.<\/p>\n

Not a day goes by that I don\u2019t give all of this abundant thought. It stays with me and fills up too many of those empty spaces, where I once could find peace of mind, or consider absolutely nothing important at all like why my N.Y. Giants don\u2019t win more … <\/p>\n

Because here\u2019s the deal: Ten years ago, it was never about the Republican Party for me \u2014 at least not at first. If John McCain or Mitt Romney had beaten Barack Obama, I wouldn\u2019t have liked it one bit, but it wouldn\u2019t have rattled me, and knocked me into despair. <\/p>\n

I once occasionally voted for Republicans many years ago, depending on the person and the issues. As a journalist, I was never a party guy, but rather than explain all that again, I will say I have not voted for a single Republican since that abominable 2003 Iraq War, because if you are capable of lying so spectacularly about something as heinous as that, what else are you capable of?<\/p>\n

Well, in November of 2016 we got our answer.<\/p>\n

Before that, and odious things like Citizens United, and the Internet, politics didn’t dominate my life, because I naively believed that if one party had gone too far like W. Bush and the GOP in 2008, the voters would correct that.<\/p>\n

For the most part, politics operated like a pendulum. Too far one way, then back to the other \u2026<\/p>\n

I never thought for a minute that any president in my lifetime before Trump would attack our vote with a vengeance, and then violently attack our country. And I promise you there was no way in even my wildest dreams that we would reelect the traitorous monster who attacked us the first time around. <\/p>\n

Trump broke something in many of us, and awakened something evil in others.<\/p>\n

I am blessed that my family saw Trump for everything he was the minute he came on the stage and started with all his hurtful, and sickening insults. It shocks me to this day that a lowlife like Trump got within 10,000 miles of the White House and that even 10 percent of the population supported him.<\/p>\n

I feel foolish typing that after all we\u2019ve been through, but it\u2019s the truth. He\u2019s a horrible man and the people who elected him are worse. <\/p>\n

No them, no him.<\/p>\n

I really did think we were better than that …<\/p>\n

And while I didn’t lose any family over this mess of a man, I lost tons of friends, a few of whom I considered family. How could I have missed what lurked inside them? How, even after he attacked us, were they STILL supporting him???<\/p>\n

Did they really think that<\/em> little of America?<\/p>\n

I used to bang my head against the wall, and ask them what they saw in Trump, until I stopped asking at all. Turns out, he hated the same human beings they did.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump walked straight into a fatal legal trap that exposes his whole empire<\/a><\/p>\n

The man\u2019s a bigot, and I don\u2019t abide bigots and people who align with them. I certainly don\u2019t call them friends.<\/p>\n

I doubt those old friends will ever come back into my life, but even after all that\u2019s happened, the door\u2019s always open. I\u2019d love nothing better than to have a meaty discussion about the last 10 years, why they finally saw the light, and the way ahead through the darkness.<\/p>\n

I have stopped holding my breath that those talks will ever happen, and it saddens me to no end. There will be no meeting in the middle because there aren\u2019t two sides to bigotry, misogyny, the destruction of our environment, and pure hate.<\/p>\n

And you want to know what the truly mind-blowing part of all of this is? <\/p>\n

They are winning.<\/p>\n

I mean, they are heartless losers, sure, but authoritarian regimes like the one in the White House are winning the political fight here, and in many places around the world.<\/p>\n

They have the Executive, the House, the Senate and the Supreme Court, and are putting a terrible beating on us.<\/p>\n

Clean air and water \u2026 women\u2019s rights \u2026 voters\u2019 rights \u2026 affordable healthcare \u2026 animals \u2026 food, clothing and education to a fast-growing number of our nation\u2019s neediest are all under attack.<\/p>\n

It is getting worse every day. Trump<\/em> is somehow getting worse every day, as he effortlessly proves he has the ability to always go lower, and drags millions of people down with him.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m not dead yet, and have come to understand I was put on this Earth for this fight. I\u2019m a cantankerous, old white guy, and hundreds of millions have had it worse. <\/p>\n

Still, sometimes these things need to be written because they are real. Our heartache and sorrow are real. Our helplessness is real. And when MAGA reads this, and many will, their contempt for me (and you) will be real. I have learned these past 10 years that they really get off on the hurt, because no matter how bad things get in their lives, my tears will sustain them.<\/p>\n

I believe these things need to be talked about, and a lot more often than they are, because people like us cannot be trivialized, nor forgotten. We have the courage to wear our hearts on our sleeves, and to take a punch and get back up.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what real patriots do. That\u2019s what people who have fought for our civil rights for centuries have done.<\/p>\n

It would be easy to just say the hell with it all, but the history our Republican friends and family want to readily erase instructs us to push on and take that beach no matter the cost \u2026 or even just that seat on the bus.<\/p>\n

We have been beaten up pretty good, but there is not one of us who has contemplated throwing in the towel and surrendering to these heartless maniacs, because it is not how we are built.<\/p>\n

A lot is being asked from us, for so little in return. The 2020 election and subsequent attack on our Capitol should have been the beginning of the end of this madness. <\/p>\n

Incredibly, it was only the beginning. <\/p>\n

And even with all that \u2026 deep in our wounded hearts we somehow know that better days are ahead, but only if we keep pushing onward, and lifting people up, instead of holding them down.<\/p>\n

We can see the high ground through all the hurt, but sometimes we need to rest, gather our wits, lick our wounds, and talk about the hard journey we\u2019ve put behind us, before we can keep resolutely marching ahead.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a hard decade, and it\u2019s OK to acknowledge the pain and anguish. We don\u2019t do enough of that.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, it just helps to know that you are not alone \u2026<\/p>\n

(D. Earl Stephens is the author of \u201cToxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump\u2019s Very Important Letters\u201d and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here, and follow him on Bluesky here.)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Read more Trump chasing \u2018sugar high\u2019 as DOJ cases \u2018crash and burn\u2019: ex-federal prosecutor<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday afternoon, I clocked into my Facebook page and it proceeded to pester me about things I was going on about 10 years ago to the day \u2014 or about the time Donald Trump began taking up space in my life.I still wasn\u2019t taking him seriously as a man, much less a presidential candidate, because I …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4118,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nThe 2016 Trump joke that sparked a national reckoning - Next Address America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=4119\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The 2016 Trump joke that sparked a national reckoning - 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