Be aware

Early voting for this year's general election is underway in most states, and it's occurred to me that many have already voted for rapist and convicted felon Donald Trump – now 78 years old and in obviously questionable mental health – for a second term as president of the United States.

If you voted early and voted for Trump...

• You voted for a racist. You can jump up and down and shout all you want in denial, but Trump has an obvious history of racism behind him. As a young man, Trump was sued by the Justice Department for violating the Fair Housing Act in 1973. Evidence shows his management corporation refused to rent to Black tenants. Then there was the Central Park Five incident in 1989, where Trump called for the execution of five innocent men of color for an alleged rape of a jogger. Even more recently, during the pandemic, Trump called Covid-19 the "China" virus. The evidence just goes on and on, too numerous to list. Look it up yourself.

• You voted for a convicted felon. Why he hasn't been sentenced four-and-a-half months after 34 convictions for fraud is beyond me. A two-tiered justice system? You bet. And it favors Trump. Who else gets to wait more than four months for sentencing? He should be in jail.

• You voted for a rapist. More than a year ago, a jury found Donald Trump guilty of sexually abusing journalist E. Jean Carroll. A federal judge, Lewis Kaplan, said Carroll was digitally raped by Trump, which, in any meaning of the word "rape," is still rape. It was a civil case so no jail time was involved. Trump was fined $5 million for that, and then later fined $83.3 million for denials Trump made in his defamation countersuit. Clearly, presidential material.

• You voted for an insurrectionist. Trump rallied (fooled) his followers into assaulting the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an effort to block certification of the vote that elected Joe Biden to office. Not only were members of Congress threatened with their lives, but more than 140 Capitol police officers were injured in the most treasonous action since the Civil War. You not only voted for an insurrectionist, but for a fascist. Or, in simpler terms, you voted for the most unAmerican president in American history as he attempted to subvert the will of the people.

• You voted for a pathological liar. The Washington Post has documented more than 30,000 lies, untruths or misleading claims during his four years in office. My rule of thumb: whenever Trump speaks, believe in the opposite of what he says because that is most likely the truth. I also love how most of his lies are either admissions or projections.

• You voted for an evil heart. Trump had his own four years to "fix" the southern border, but all he came up with was the separation of children from their parents. To this day, there are more than 1,000 children who are seeking to be reunited with their families. To me, this is the most egregious episode in the most profane presidency in American history. And now, if elected, he wants to create detention camps for illegal aliens. Pick up a history book and see if you can find something similar in world events. It won't take long. Our own country had internment camps for Japanese citizens during World War II that ultimately resulted decades later in $1.6 billion in reparations for those interred or their offspring. And then there's those camps in Nazi Germany. Don't talk to me about border issues when Trump was a spectacular failure during his own administration. How's that wall coming along, by the way?

• You voted for a misogynist. Trump managed to stack the Supreme Court with enough of his lackeys to overturn Roe v. Wade, thus inciting a war against women and their reproductive freedoms that should be nobody's business but their own. Women are dying now because of this. They're being arrested for miscarriages. They are being punished by men who feel themselves losing power.

• You voted for a murderer. Okay, I might be splitting hairs here. But it seems to me when Covid-19 first appeared in this country, we had all those refrigeration trucks filled with corpses and not enough ventilators to keep afflicted people alive. Remember those days, or is our memory so short? Although Trump did come up with Operation Warp Speed to quickly develop a vaccine for Covid, he almost immediately downplayed its effectiveness. And people died. Republicans who listened to him died. This pandemic was so mismanaged that, yes, I think I can say he murdered those people.

I know my rants about Trump the past few years mostly have fallen on deaf ears for those who need to hear them. That's OK. It's just the way it is. But I feel good writing them. I know they are the truth.

And the truth shall set us free.