Don't want to hear it? Tough.

My response to an inflammatory Washington Post opinion piece about Trump.

This might be hard to hear, but this is what I think.

Hysteria like this article isn't helpful, it's precisely what Trump wants. 

There is a reckoning coming for progressives, and for the more thoughtful conservatives like me who believe Trump is not the right choice - we are going to have to take a deep breath and suck it up and treat him and the office of the presidency with respect. It's the only way to get through the next four years with a hope for beating him in 2020. This is what I have realized, and so have many republican leaders. Screaming and stomping our feet will have the opposite effect of what we want.

The louder we yell, the harder we push, the more we give this man what he wants - anger, fear, hate, the more that is sent his way, the more he will thrive. He is a counter puncher of the highest order, who is seemingly always on the verge of his campaign imploding - only, that will never happen.

Trump is going to win, and it's too late to do anything about it.

And here's why...

Trump is borne and cut from the same cloth as the Obama administration and to some extent George W Bush. The ideas that politics are identity and that policy and ideology are indistinguishable, have been so incredibly damaging to this country; and Trump is the inevitable result. 

Trump is not conservative, he's not liberal, he's not even populist really. He is a reaction to more than 8 years of demagoguery filling in for thoughtful discussion, a reaction to the politics of shame and name calling. 

Everyone who doesn't want a co-ed bathroom is a homophobe. Everyone who thinks that Michael Brown got what most people get when they grab a cops gun is a racist. Everyone who makes a joke about food allergies should apologize immediately and atone for their sins. Everyone needs to fall in line with the thought police.

Trump is middle class Americans way of saying 'enough'.

Enough complaining about the gap between the rich and the poor and then promptly widening it exponentially.

Enough about praising the "low unemployment rate" as the number of Americans out of work explodes to a 50 year high.

Enough about decrying the pay gap between men and women, and then paying men in your administration far more than women.

Enough with commenting on Treyvon Martin when very few facts were available while ignoring Kathryn Steinle when all the facts were available.

Enough of apologizing for America's greatness.

Enough gutting the military and doing nothing about the disaster that is the VA while exponentially increasing spending on social safety nets that demean and further impoverish.

Enough of blackmailing schools into taking the preposterous common core curriculum. 

Enough of releasing terrorists from Gitmo so they can kill again.

And so on and so on and so on.

And an establishment Republican is no better. In fact, any politician is no good now. Cruz wasn't exactly establishment, but he never had a chance. And despite what the breathless pundits are saying, neither does Hillary.

Suck it up. Own it. We asked for it and now we have to live with it.

This appears to be happening...

Really guys? Really? I know it's a long way to November, but still... this looks like it's really happening. He's got a bigger lead than Obama had in both 2008 and 2012.  

President Trump.  

Nope, can't get my head around it.

I know I'm politically opposite a lot (okay most) of you, my family, my friends, but I don't want this for our country. Sadly though, I feel as though after 8 years of wrecking ball progressivism, this is the backlash, this is the inevitable result.  

You cannot take millions of jobs from Americans while lying about the unemployment rate and not expect consequences. You cannot exponentially drive up health care premiums for the middle class and not expect backlash. You cannot drown hard working Americans in the dogma of race baiting, politically correct, liberal idiocy and not expect a reaction.

You cannot have a leader who makes the malaise of Jimmy Carter look downright patriotic in comparison, and not expect an outcry of nationalism. You cannot have a president who barely hides disdain for the military, and works to systematically dismantle it, and not expect angry vets and soldiers.

But what's done is done I suppose. Right now we have to deal with it. I want to be hopeful, I want to believe that somehow we can avoid the catastrophe of a buffoon for a president, or a criminal for that matter. 

Please convince me that somehow Trump can lose, because right now he's winning - by a lot. And I will be damned if conservatives shoulder the lions share of the blame here. Take that pointy finger and aim it right at yourselves.  

I am a conservative. I am NOT Donald Trump. I am the opposite of everything he pushes.

He is not conservative, he is an big government populist, much more aligned with Bernie Sanders supporters in their anger and desire to overthrow the system and inflict totalitarian rule. Trump, like Bernie, started out as a protest campaign, now he finds himself being thrust by a wave of American anger directly towards the White House.

This is real. This is NOT my fault.