The Tariff on Hatred is Here, Trumpers. It's Time for You to Pay

It's time to pay up, Trumpers.The deferred invoice for collectively selling your souls is here.It's time to pay for every incendiary campaign boast you cheered,every baseless diatribe you vigorously applauded,every nonsensical middle-of-the-night tweet you boosted,every dehumanizing stereotype and slur you shared,every callous rally insult you passionately amen-ed.It’s time to pay for every denial of Scientific evidence,every terminated qualified conscientious objector,every attack on factual, responsible journalism,every vicious assault on objective reality,every nepotistic Cabinet appointment,every dog-and-pony show distraction,every lazy xenophobic caricature,every tired racist tirade.This is how your beloved capitalism works, isn't it: someone was always going to pay for services rendered? Nothing is free, isn't that what you've been saying—no handouts? Well, dig deep, friend, because you are on the hook for this.Many people have been footing the bill for a long time: migrants and Muslims and transgender people, young black men, refugees, the sick and the poor, already vulnerable communities pushed to the brink—and now past it.You were paying, too, of course, you were just too willfully ignorant or intellectually negligent to realize it. Over and over we tried to tell you about the cost: the civil rights you were sacrificing too, the environmental protections you were losing as well as we were, the safety and security you were relinquishing alongside us. We tried to tell you that this hardship was not a partisan expense, that his moral bankruptcy would eventually hit you hard too.But your Fox News bubble and your white Evangelical echo chamber and your America First, Don't Tread on Me, middle-finger affinity clubs left you certain you were insulated from it all; that the only tears that would fall would be liberal ones, that the only people suffering voted for Kamala, that all of the pain would be isolated to people who vote Blue.You felt immune to the spreading sickness. You felt invincible because your messiah told you that you were winning, and that was enough for you.He was lying to you as he always does, but you preferred to believe the lie because it felt warm running through your veins even as it was poisoning you—the intoxicating, cheap high of making America great while owning the Libs. That was a costly drug, that arrogance—and you were slowly going broke in your addiction.Now, in the middle of a swiftly-arriving recession, a precipitous market crash, and a nation in chaos, the bill is coming due. You can't avoid paying anymore. You're here with us.I think even you realize that now, or you are soon about to.The astronomical costs of everything, the evaporation of health support services, the loss of pensions, and the national sadness that no wasteful star-spangled vanity parade can distract from.This is the human cost of the MAGA cult delusion, and we're all paying for it now equally, however we voted.Ultimately, fascism doesn't choose sides, authoritarians don’t spare voting blocs, and sociopaths don’t hold any loyalties. The monster you intended to unleash on the Woke Mob is turning on you, too.The tax on hatred is here, Trump voters. The tariff on your importing his sociopathy has now arrived.I hope whatever you received was worth it.I hope you still feel like you're winning.The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit johnpavlovitz.substack.com/subscribe