Dear Bleeding Heart Liberal Friend,

I understand you are hurting, confused, broken, shocked, devastated. I get it. I harken back to four years ago and how happy you were when Barack Obama took another four years at the helm. You posted joyful status updates, wonderful tributes to the President and his First Lady, called them the best in the world. I asked you not to gloat, you said you were not gloating.

Cut to 2016. I finally open my mouth to say that I voted for Trump. Now, I am not only “gloating” but I am a racist-homophobe-bigot. But unlike you, I did not call you “stupid” in 2012. I did not insult your intelligence nor did I assault your character.

I will, however, start by saying I am sorry. I am sorry that you feel that my vote for Donald J. Trump makes me a terrible person. I wrestled with my decision and my choice over the months and in the end after considering policies and Supreme Court decisions (both personal decisions and last time I checked, my right to vote based on them), I felt at ease with my decision. I am sorry that you cannot have the compassion to wrap your brain around my decision…that your judgement is so strong that you feel the need to judge me on THIS and THIS alone rather than good deeds I have done as a human and positive things I have said and memories we have shared as friends. I am sorry that you think that my vote means that I hate people who try and come to this country. I am sorry that you think my vote means that I hate people who choose a different lifestyle than I do. I am sorry you think my skepticism of big government is my buying into a “vast right-wing conspiracy”. I am sorry that I do not buy into the scare tactics that Mr. Trump will begin the next nuclear holocaust. I am sorry you seem to think that I am intellectually inferior to you because I have a different opinion.

I am also not sorry. I am NOT sorry nor am I embarrassed to be an American. Even in our darkest hours, I never will be embarrassed to be an American. Even in 2012, with the re-election of the most un-American administrator that is outgoing in January, I was and still stand tall and proud of my country. I am not sorry that I feel a heartbeat, no matter how small, deserves a fighting chance and that eradicating it from your body is not a viable form of birth control. I am not sorry that I think individuals of all races and nationalities deserve the same path our ancestors had as Americans…and that I admire those who work hard at this path and not those who try to bend the rules or kill us in the process. I feel that our nation has been downtrodden for so long, that our families have become increasingly dependent on big government programs and have become encouraged to play the system and I’m not sorry about the promise and possibility of putting an end and making some of these able-bodied leeches get off their asses and get jobs. I am not sorry nor will I tiptoe around terrorist jerks who want to tear us down. I am not sorry for my belief in God, or that I openly celebrate Christmas. I am not sorry that I am not warping my English because you feel Christian holidays and gender pronouns are offensive. I am not sorry that I love our military service members and want them protected, valued and respected at all costs. I am not sorry that I don’t feel that burning the American flag is EVER an okay form of protest and not sorry for standing with my hand on my heart for our National Anthem. I am not sorry for not buying into any of what these big-media, big-Hollywood twits with crass humor have to say or what you may have to say for that matter. I am not sorry that I view your vision of “progress” as part of our country’s downward spiral into the abyss. I am not sorry that Hillary Clinton did not get my buy-in. At the end of the day, I’d rather choose a flawed man over a known corrupt career politician and a bold-faced liar even though she is a woman. And, I will not be the least bit sorry after I say this- that you all need to get it together, pull yourself up from the bootstraps and cope already.

Pull yourself together. Take it from your racist, homophobic, xenophobic friend who voted for a liar, a rapist, a misogynist, a demagogue. (Did I cover everything on Salon and HuffPo’s cue-sheet?) Sorry, not sorry.

Love and Light…I am out of the closet now.

Your Friend, The Deplorable