My wife Alice and I are not having our after-the-holidays party this year.  It’s a 20+ year tradition; a welcome respite for our friends following Christmas and Hanukah. Guests always say how much they appreciate a party after the holidays and having a chance to finally relax.

This year, however, I told my Alice that Trump voters were not welcome in my home.  Living in Dallas, Texas, and given the conservative bent of our friends, that meant no party. We couldn’t invite only the few people we knew who conformed to our sense of decency.  We weren’t even sure where some of our neighbors stood. So we cancelled the whole affair. 

In fact, I went further.  I told my tennis group, whom I had known for years, I would no longer be playing with them, since most were Trump supporters. I stated that I could not socialize with people who lacked a moral compass which I consider fundamental to being American.

What has brought about such an extreme reaction in me, to the point of cutting off relationships and ceasing activities that I enjoy?  It’s really not that complicated.

Immediately after the election, I was somewhat sanguine – despite the shock of “losing” an election in which my candidate won the popular vote by almost 3 million.  My mother reminded me that we had survived Reagan.  My sister noted that our grandmother – a proud Suffragette – had once commented:  “we survived Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, The Depression and World War II; we can survive anything.” 

I thought perhaps that Trump the President, might be chastened by the awesome responsibility he was about to assume – and leave behind the toxicity of his campaign rhetoric.  Then, in rapid succession, three things happened that changed my mind.

First, Trump announced that Steve Bannon, of Breitbart infamy, would become a senior White House advisor. To invite such a purveyor of lies, hate and bigotry to work inside the hallowed gates of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was beyond the pale.

Then, my company’s COO, a Chinese American, told me how his small children were distraught, and in tears that morning. Children in their preschool had bullied them with comments such as:  “your father is going to be killed because he didn’t vote for Trump”, and “you are going to be kicked out of the country”. This in Coppell, Texas, a wealthy suburb.  These remarks were directed at third generation American citizens, by small children, obviously channeling their parents.

The next day, another friend relayed the anti-Semitism that was unleashed at Highland Park High School, ranked in the top 1% of all Texas public high schools.  His son had become subject to taunts such as:  “why don’t you go to Auschwitz?” and “take a shower, Jew boy”.  These were teenagers, but we know where those sentiments originated.

These incidents washed over me like a plague. I realized this was not a normal election, with one political philosophy prevailing over another.  This was a repudiation of the value system – and Constitution - on which the United States is based.  This was a green light to racism and demagoguery which apparently festers even in people of privilege.  This was an overt turning of the cheek to freedom of the press, to truth, decency and respect.  The bigotry that my friends’ children experienced were not isolated incidents.  Intimidation, threats and hatred – directed at minorities, immigrants, etc. - have come fast and furious since November 8^th.

Every person who voted for Trump is complicit. Some, like Hillary’s deplorables, are incorrigible.  Others, like our comfortable friends, chose their own pocketbooks, or their understandable distaste of Hillary Clinton, over doing what was right. 

These people should have known better.  Any student of history can compare current times to the rise of fascism in the 1930’s – when an electorate reeling from The Great Depression brought to power Hitler and emboldened Mussolini. The formula was eerily familiar:  blame others for your own failures and turn power over to a man who pledges to restore the country to its prior greatness.

Today, restless populations in the US and Europe are traumatized by economic and social changes brought about by globalization.  Many blame immigrants, minorities, elites and the media for their plight.  This is now a world in which strongman elected officials like Putin, Duterte, La Pen and Hofer are enjoying surges of popularity. They wantonly attack life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – all in the name of economic retribution, law and order, and fighting terrorism.

To this menacing trend, we now add Donald Trump. This is not a joke.  This is not tolerable. This is not American. The people who enabled it by voting for this ignorant and dangerous buffoon are not welcome in my home.