Steve Schmidt

From Steve Schmidt: former campaign manager to John McCain and lifelong Republican, newly registered Democrat.

“No, Biden’s rallies weren’t bigger. No, you didn’t see many Biden flags on houses or Biden bumper stickers on cars. No, you don’t know a single person on your street or at your church who supports Biden. But guess what? We’re here.

Biden’s rallies were small because people who live in reality don’t want to expose themselves to the virus you continue to downplay or deny. We don’t fly Biden flags because we don’t want our houses burned down. We don’t put Biden bumper stickers on our cars because we want to avoid becoming targets for road rage. We don’t trust you. We’ve decided to minimize our interactions with people who cannot be reasoned with. This is for our own safety.

In private groups – where you’re not invited – we share our bewilderment of your descent into madness. We all have stories about how we’ve cut ties with you, our family and former friends, because we don’t want your hatred poisoning our social media streams. We can’t stand to listen to you vomiting the lies of your cult, day after day. You used to be different. We liked you. But now that we know what was inside your heart all along, we’ve decided you don’t deserve to know about our lives.

We’ll skip family reunions, even after we get the vaccine. We’ll make up some excuse just to be polite. But in reality, we just don’t feel like sitting around eating potato salad and making small talk with people who have such monstrous beliefs.

To all the brothers and aunts and cousins and dads and neighbors out there who just can’t wrap their heads around what this means going forward, know that these scars aren’t going away anytime soon. We won’t be reaching out, and we won’t be mending fences. It’s not up to us to apologize for the wounds you have gleefully inflicted upon us and our friends. You poured the gasoline, you lit the match. You burned this to the ground.

So if we seem different from now on, I guess we are, in a way. We’ve seen your truth laid bare, and we’re horrified.

I hope Trump was worth it.”