David McElroy

As I pulled into a parking place at Walmart Monday evening, I could hear crying and screaming. A woman and her two children were at the van next to me. The youngest child was crying at the top of her lungs. The other child was yelling. The mom was screaming back.

I immediately didn’t like her.

“Get in the car and stop screaming,” she screamed at one child. “No, you’re not getting that. Just get in there and shut up, both of you.”

I sat in my car for a moment, silently judging her for being out of control and screaming at her kids.

As I got out of the car and looked over at the woman, I saw someone who looked exhausted, angry and stressed. She didn’t seem like a bad person. She just seemed like someone who was overwhelmed and snapped at her children because she had reached the end of her rope.

There’s a part of me that has a whole bundle of pre-made judgments for someone in such a situation. Her children are out of control because she hasn’t taught them how to behave. She should know better than to yell at them like that. She should act like the adult. She should be in control.

The list goes on and on.

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I’m terrified of what Donald Trump might do as president, but I’m even more terrified of the system that has the power to set him — or anyone else — up as a ruler over me.

As Trump makes statements that are increasingly insane and scary, I see people all over social media posting those words and pointing out how scary they are. Their outrage makes it clear that they’re saying to Trump supporters, “See? Don’t you get it? The man is crazy. Quit supporting him!”

I’m starting to realize that a lot of people can’t accept that a substantial portion of the voting public — a vast majority, I’d argue — are delusional in very serious ways. They believe that if Trump supporters just understand how monstrous his beliefs are — and how insane he is — his support would evaporate.

They’re wrong.

Trump is exactly what a huge percentage of people in this country want. Think about that for a moment.

Millions and millions of people want a “strong man” who will promise to fix all their problems. They want someone who will “stand up” to other governments, threatening those nations, bullying them and bombing other people who don’t bend to his will. They want someone who will protect them from foreigners who scare them. They want someone who will pander to their darkest, ugliest prejudices — because they are too ignorant to know how evil their beliefs are.

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