So you voted for Trump

So you voted for Donald Trump. I don't understand it and I sure the hell am never going to be okay with it, but the inauguration is over now and what's done is done. But if you're a person of good will, if you've got a conscience, if you're a person of faith, you are morally obligated to help clean up the mess your guy's about to make.

Trump and the Republicans aim to prevent the many male and female Medicaid patients from going to Planned Parenthood for cancer screenings, prenatal care, routine physicals, vaccinations, STI tests and treatment, and counseling services. Your guy is taking needed health care services away from people in poverty which means you have the moral obligation to do something to help those folks. You need to donate to your local free clinics, hospitals, and community health centers. Without access to the services that Planned Parenthood provides, people will die, and that's on you.

 I am not asking you to change your mind about Planned Parenthood, but I am telling you that you're responsible for helping the men women and children who will be left in the lurch. I am telling you that if you're pro-life, if you really are pro-life, it's time for you to start feeding, clothing, and caring for those babies once they're born. If you're Catholic, St. Vincent de Paul provides food, clothes, and other assistance to families in need. If you're a pro-life Catholic you are morally obligated to give generously to charities like this one, now more than ever. If you call yourself pro-life and do nothing to help people in need, you have no business calling yourself pro-life.

And another thing. Just because you voted for the guy doesn't mean you have to support his insane cabinet picks. You need to call your elected officials about his nomination for education secretary, Betsy DeVos, and you need to do it now. The woman is a menace who doesn't have any experience with public schools at all. Her confirmation hearing demonstrated that she has no understanding of Individuals with Disabilities Education Act - that she didn't even know it was federal law. She doesn't support full accountability for private and voucher schools. She also has, unsurprisingly, massive financial conflicts of interest. You have a mind. You are capable of independent thought. You know this woman isn't even qualified to run a school cafeteria and it is your responsibility to call your elected officials and tell them so. If this lady is confirmed, there's a good chance, based on her past advocacy, that she'll shift federal funding away from public schools and toward unregulated, unaccountable for-profit schools. A generation's worth of kids' education hangs in the balance, and these kids are gonna be your doctors and nurses when you get old. Get. on. the. phone. If this woman gets confirmed, on January 31st, the fallout will be on you.

You voted for a man who bragged about grabbing women by the pussy. You voted for a man who has demeaned and harassed women all his life and bragged about doing so. You voted for a man who has made sexual comments about young girls, a man who calls women he doesn't like pigs and dogs. You elected a man who in 2013 said that rape in the military is a logical consequence of having women in the military. And that means if you've got a conscience, you've got a serious karmic debt to pay. I don't agree with all the work Catholic Charities does, but they do fight tooth and nail against sexual violence and you've got no excuse not to support them. There are a ton of Christian organizations fighting sexual violence, human trafficking, and violence against women and girls, and you need to look them up and start supporting them with your time and money. If you don't agree with the awful, vitriolic comments your guy has made about women but supported him anyway for some effing reason, you have a moral imperative to do something to compensate.

You like the arts? You better start going to museums and donating dollars because Trump's promising to cut off funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. You like PBS and NPR? Better donate to your local affiliate because Trump and the Republicans are planning to cut their funding too. You like clean air and water, and bodies of water that don't catch fire on the regular? Well, with a guy who has repeatedly sued the EPA, who has called himself the “leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda” heading the EPA, you better start looking after the environment by reducing your own carbon footprint and donating to organizations like the Environmental Defense Fund. If the government's not going to help us preserve our planet, we're all going to have to step it up, and that means you, Trump voters who care about the environment. 

I'm not telling you to do anything I wouldn't do or haven't done. But I am telling you that you need to step up and help us preserve our education system, our (already alarmingly weak) social safety net, our planet.

You know how conservatives are always saying the government shouldn't be in the business of helping the poor and needy, that private charities should do the job? Well we are about to find out how well that whole idea works (again), so you need to pony up. I get that people of conscience voted for Trump, though I will never ever understand how they justified it. Now it's time for you people of conscience to get off your asses and get to helping us deal with the fallout.