I've written this and deleted this a couple times, but here it goes...
In late January, I began publicly praising President Trump for the progress I was seeing in Western North Carolina after Hurricane Helene.
Most of my friends up until that point, were liberal.
They publicly and privately supported my efforts to bring awareness to our area, thanked me for uplifting the good work volunteers were doing, and were also appalled at the first-hand stories I would tell them about FEMA failing people we were helping.
Almost across the board, regardless of politics, everyone was thankful for the work we were doing bringing awareness to the area.
Then Trump got elected.
And positive momentum towards cleanup that I hadn't seen in months started happening.
I got the opportunity to speak personally to the new Director of FEMA and he spoke personally, for over an hour, to the victims of Helene that we were helping.
He apologized for the way they were treated, for the slow pace of help they were receiving, and vowed to do better.
And guess what? He kept that promise, and many others that he made to me and to victims.
It's not all perfect, but it's so much better than it was under Joe Biden.
So I said that, on this platform.
I thank President Trump publicly for not forgetting about us, for putting someone in charge of FEMA who truly cared about us, and for getting things done.
That's when people I never, ever expected, started turning on me.
I lost many people I thought were my friends.
I got swatted by some crazed leftist in the middle of the night.
I started getting publicly attacked FOR helping people.
They came after my job, my family, everything I had.
I did not expect this.
It happened so fast and with such fury, I was completely caught off guard and had not prepared myself for the pure anger and vitriol I was receiving.
I'm a dad. I'm a husband. I work hard at a good job. I get up every morning and make my kids lunches before school. I try to be a good person... and I know I'm not perfect.
But attempting to ruin someone's entire life because you don't like that they are publicly praising President Trump for something good he did...
That is ABSURD and it has to stop.
I don't know how we got to this point.
The point at which you can't say something that is happening right in front of your face IF it happens to give credit to President Trump...
...because if you do, some angry mob could try to ruin your life and send armed police to your home in the middle of the night.
I don't know how we get out of this.
But maybe a good start would be to remember that on the other side of this app, is me, a Dad that's just worried about his kids' future and wants them to live in a world where they are not terrified into silence for saying what they believe to be true.
Maybe, we can just start there, and work back up.
