The threats and harassment Gates endured came to a head on the day of Trump’s lawless Jan. 6 putsch.
As members of Congress gathered in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, to certify the 2020 election, about 1,000 Trump loyalists protested outside of the state capitol in Phoenix, where they erected a guillotine and carried rifles. Gates watched on television in disbelief as rioters climbed the U.S. Capitol steps and pounded their way inside. What he had mistaken as tough-talk was actually the impetus of a violent attempt to overthrow the government.
Gates worried his family may not be safe in their home. He had been labeled a “traitor” and worried a mob might come for him.
[…]He booked a rental home for what he and his wife called a family “staycation.” But his daughters knew they were hiding out. He worried about what this traumatic experience was doing to their childhood. But he hoped the attempted coup would be a wake-up call for leaders in his party who had endorsed or even echoed Trump’s rhetoric.
The Post goes into great detail about Gates’ and his family’s ordeal—so much so that the article occasionally becomes difficult to read. Gates’ example also perfectly illustrates why losing presidential candidates have unerringly conceded elections shortly after it became clear they’d lost them. Doing anything less sows chaos and threatens the health of our democracy—something Trump clearly doesn’t care about. (The health of our democracy, that is; he clearly loves the chaos.)
Gates says he began suffering PTSD symptoms on the heels of severe abuse and harassment from the very people with whom he’d previously aligned himself politically. He was told he was a traitor who should be hanged or shot. One person said his daughters should be raped, and he even worried about his Fox News-watching parents turning against him.
His usual cheerfulness and optimism evaporated in the face of the onslaught, and he started to lose sleep, as well as his appetite. And, as The Post notes, “his ever-simmering anger would increasingly explode into view during public meetings, interviews with journalists and social gatherings.”
He began to question his own worth. His wife said she no longer recognized him, his daughters stopped asking him to help them with their problems, and he was “consumed” by feelings of abandonment over his strained relationships with his fellow Republicans.
Through all that, Gates stuck to his guns, but his dedication to his sworn duty and the truth extracted a considerable toll. Eventually, in May 2022, Gates sought therapy. He discussed his feelings of betrayal, as well as how the unfair and dishonest criticism he’d received led to insecurity and anger and manifested in physical problems like high blood pressure, anxiety, headaches, and insomnia.
And in the process, says Gates, the ordeal—which continued through the November 2022 midterm elections when GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake decided her election had been stolen, too—robbed him of much of his identity.
RELATED STORY: Kari Lake calls people counting her votes ‘incompetent’ and a ‘laughingstock’
“I’m not the smartest guy,” he told the Post. “I’m not the most dynamic speaker. But I was always, like, honest. I had integrity. They’ve taken that away from me forever.”
And for who? Donald Trump—the guy who viciously insulted Arizona hero and native son John McCain, ended his term with a net loss of nearly 3 million jobs, and presumably refrained from trying to eat Joe Biden’s face off during the first 2020 presidential debate only because the Adderall was temporarily blunting the impact of the bath salts. That guy.
In the end, Gates unwittingly became yet another answer to the rhetorical, anonymously sourced question posed by one senior GOP official shortly after Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election: “What is the downside for humoring [Trump] for this little bit of time? No one seriously thinks the results will change. He went golfing this weekend. It’s not like he’s plotting how to prevent Joe Biden from taking power on Jan. 20. He’s tweeting about filing some lawsuits, those lawsuits will fail, then he’ll tweet some more about how the election was stolen, and then he’ll leave.”
How did that work out? And yet Republicans—and the media—continue to underestimate the danger Trump poses.
Of course, it’s not just individuals’ lives that the Big Lie has destroyed. Trump’s ongoing dishonesty is also having a severe impact on our ability to administer elections, as many jurisdictions are now reporting difficulties finding election workers, who are understandably reluctant to risk their lives for a paycheck.
For instance, in April, Buckingham County, Virginia, registrar Lindsey Taylor quit her job—as did two of her part-time staffers. Her resignation followed that of a deputy registrar who had quit in February. According to NBC News, the exodus occurred after the county electoral board was taken over by Republicans, who began hyping voter fraud claims that “baffled” Taylor.
“There were people saying that they had heard all these rumors—that the attorney general was going to indict me,” Taylor told NBC News. “Mentally, I just—I couldn’t take it anymore.”
You can find similarly harrowing stories here, here, and here.
Donald Trump has done so much damage to this country that it may be decades before we’ve fully healed. But it’s important to remember that he doesn’t discriminate. It’s not just liberals and Democrats he’s out to ruin—it’s anyone who remains steadfast in the face of his lies. And if you tell the truth about the 2020 election, he’ll immediately try to grind you under his Lilliputian thumb. And your life—not to mention our country—will never be the same.
RELATED STORY: At least 8 fake Trump electors agree to immunity in Georgia investigation of 2020 election scheme
Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.
