I loathe the GOP convention every four years. It is a spectacle of everything I find fundamentally reprehensible. Still, I dutifully watch the speeches, celebrities speaking to chairs, rogue newcomers talking about lipstick and pigs, and shake my head, hoping their poll bounce isn’t deadly to all I hold dear.

I watch under the banner of keeping your friends close and your enemies even closer. And, truth be told, every so often, someone with whom I may be able to find a smidge of common ground (and by common ground, I mean, they are breathing, I am breathing, so we have that in common at least) will roll up to the podium and say something that isn’t a verbal word salad. Or nazi-era rhetoric. Not often, but it has happened. At least I think it has.

Watching feckless Sarah Palin eight years ago give the pinnacle speech of her career at the RNC, I knew immediately, Democrats could be in trouble. Her sheer stupidity at that time wasn’t apparent – none of us knew anything about her then. In that convention hall and on television, you could feel her schtick resonating with her red-meat audience and beyond. Her schtick was sticking.

But, this year. This year…

I question how any person who says they care about people, who label themselves as Christian or Jewish, who says he loves his family, who knows the meaning of the word love…how they, Republican or not, could find room for Donald Trump at the table, much less vote for this man.

Look, I’ll say it flat out. If you are one of these folks, I challenge you to keep reading and to answer how you justify your support of this bottom-feeding narcissist at the expense of our country.

Back in the day (like, I dunno, as recent as eight short years ago), there was a candidate for president with whom many liberals could actually find middle space. Perhaps on the topic of POW treatment, or national service, or even (though McCain has since turned into a limp, wish-washy eel) on the topic of choice. Even four years ago, an otherwise socially liberal conservative (Romney was, once, pro-choice, pro-health care for all, pro-a lot of damn things before he abandoned it all in his quest for the nomination that was, unbeknownst to him so far gone as to be unrecognizable), would not have caused all that much distress for those of us on the left. In other words, we could tolerate (barely) a person who said something to appeal to the majority of his base during a campaign, as long as he had a track record for doing the humane and compassionate thing when it counted. Even George W. Bush fell into that category. While we disagreed with much that came from the right, there were flashes of policy talk, a focus on the details that keep the wheels of government working, a nod to compromise.

And then, a line was crossed. Did you feel it when it happened?

While the trajectory of the GOP was an upward rising arc toward the 47%, toward the closing of Planned Parenthood clinics, toward marching around monkey posters at anti-Obama rallies, toward the continued denial of a U.S. president’s birthplace, and toward the fringes of their party screeching (unanswered, mind you) about lynching and shooting the president, we continued, like good liberals do, to hold onto those flashes of common ground and explain away the fringe talk.

We can still work with some of these people, we thought.

But that arc continued to bend rightward, and then took off in some direction we didn’t recognize to become a party that justifies race-baiting, compulsively wasting our collective time by voting over sixty times to overturn the ACA, a party that broke with precedent and has outright refused to vote on a Supreme Court justice, a party that has worked hard to deny voting rights to American citizens, and a party with smug smirks on their faces in the aftermath of 20 murdered toddlers because they were successful at keeping the gun show loophole open to all domestic terrorists.

And, all of this before a thrice-married, reality television host threw his hat in the ring.

In the last four years, the party reached its inflection point and the result is something we do not recognize. We don’t know these people who are screaming racist chants at Trump rallies. We are sickened by the retch coming from the mouth of the candidate. We are embarrassed for ourselves that we could produce this. We are embarrassed that the media, our fourth estate, the keepers of the truth, did not have the backbone to stop taking his candidacy seriously.

Let’s break this down, one more time:

1) Regarding Latinos, here’s a small sampling of what Donald Trump has said:

• “When Mexico sends its people, they are sending drugs, crime, rapists.”
• He tweeted, “So true. Jeb Bush is crazy, who cares that he speaks Mexican. This is America!”
• Another tweet, “Sadly, the overwhelming amount of violent crime in our major cities is committed by blacks and hispanics [sic].”

Let me ask you this, if your wife or husband was Hispanic and sitting across from he or she at your Thanksgiving table was your Uncle Leo who uttered any the above, would you want to look for common ground? What if the person who said the above was an employee of yours? Would you keep him on the payroll? What if he was your neighbor? Would you invite him over for a bar-b-q? Would you vote for him? What if this was your son who uttered these comments? Would that be okay?

By the way, any of you who count yourself in my circle and also plan to vote for Trump should know that my husband is Hispanic. Oh, and fuck you.

2) Regarding women, a VERY small sampling of what Donald Trump has said:

• Regarding women in the military, he tweeted, “26,000 unreported sexual assaults in the military-only 238 convictions. What did these geniuses expect when they put men & women together?”
• To a female reporter, he said, “I mean, we could say politically correct that look doesn’t matter, but the look obviously matters. Like you wouldn’t have your job if you weren’t beautiful.”
• As reported on CNN, when a Elizabeth Beck, a lawyer facing Trump in 2011 asked for a break to pump breast milk for her infant daughter, she reported, “He got up, his face got red, he shook his finger at me and he screamed, ‘You’re disgusting, you’re disgusting,’ and he ran out of there.”
• In April 2015, Trump tweeted, “If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband, what makes her think she can satisfy America?”
• New York Times columnist Gail Collins recalled: “During one down period, I referred to him in print as a ‘financially embattled thousandaire’ and he sent me a copy of the column with my picture circled and ‘The Face of a Dog!’ written over it.”
• And, of course, by now we all know he called the actress Rosie O’Donnell a pig. But she was just one woman. And, after all, she was overweight. Is that how you justify this?

There are not many words in the English language that have the same offensive evilness as the n-word does to most of us, not the least of which are African Americans. Perhaps the c-word ranks close when hurled at a female. I personally think some of the above comes close.

If Donald Trump called anyone the n-word – would we, half the country, the media, the punditry, be entertaining his candidacy? Would he be under pressure to decline the nomination? Would the major news networks still be clamoring to get him on camera? Would pundits be talking about his policies and his plans (or lack thereof) with serious faces? Would any person (other than his well-known white supremacists supporters) be shown in attendance at the RNC, let alone up on stage? Well, okay, fair point – some in the GOP would show up, of course. But, I am still naive enough to think that most wouldn’t.

But, to you, my GOP friends…those insults directed at women are okay? Well, no, you say…I never said they were okay, but I can overlook them. Why is that, exactly? Why can you overlook him calling a woman a pig, but you wouldn’t get over him calling an African American the n-word? Or would you? Please, I’m holding my breath, tell me how you are voting your conscience on this one.

Wait a darn second. Is this because of your guns? Are your guns more important than human dignity, then? Granted, you have every right to be frightened that President Clinton will take away your substitute penis, just like her predecessor did. I mean, the number of guns President Obama has ordered confiscated must be numbering in the high 0’s by now.

So, with zero evidence, save your well-honed instinct, you would vote for a dangerous clown who, aside from being a racist Neanderthal, is in the middle of a massive class-action lawsuit for stealing money from every-day working folks, can’t roll-out a vice president announcement to save his life and hired his adolescent son to create a third grade logo for his entire campaign? Is it because you think he’s successful at business? There’s this thing called Google. Use it. Unless you have a rich father to leave you a pile of bucks and then use those bucks to sue the hell out of the little guy, you are out of luck if you think he’s going to trickle down his wealth to you, you idiot.

3) Donald Trump openly mocked and mimicked a disabled reporter. Did you see the video?? Explain again how you look the other way and pull the lever for this guy.

The list goes on, of course. If you are interested, here’s a list of 239 people and things Donald Trump has insulted on Twitter alone.

So, no, I will not be watching the GOP Convention. I do not need to understand these people to understand how to combat racism, or homophobia, or sexism. And, my friends on the right, neither do you. Be brave. Take a note from your favorite president’s wife and just say no. Say, not this time, not this guy. I’ll vote for the future Romney or Ryan or Rubio, but my faith, my conscience, and my love for this country say, no way to this anti-American narcissist. Sit home, if you must. Vote for a third party candidate if you need to exercise your right to pull the lever. But, take a stand, for God’s sake. Literally. What would Jesus do, indeed?

There was a time when understanding the politics of those across the aisle was important, but the GOP lost its soul a long time ago. I don’t want Uncle Leo at my Thanksgiving table. I don’t want to learn about how he came to be such a racist ass in an effort to find common ground.

If you happen to be Leo’s friend, you aren’t welcome in my home, or on my Facebook page, either. I won’t do business with you or anyone who supports you. You won’t trim my trees, do my taxes, or handle my legal affairs. If you show up at my house with a Trump sticker on your truck, you will be turned away. You want to question all Muslims entering our country about their religious faith? I’ll do the same for you – did you vote for Donald Trump in 2016? If you did, I’ll turn you away. I’ll post it on Facebook. I’ll make sure my like-minded friends know. You are not welcome in my life and I don’t want to find common ground with you.

Let me make this simple for you, because it is clear you operate in the world of short sentences and convenient tag lines:

Because you support Donald Trump for any reason, you are an asshole and I want you to go away.

Now then, I will be setting the table for people who approach our differences with respect and principle and a sense of responsibility to the Christian and Judaic teachings upon which you rely so heavily. You are welcome to discuss with me why you believe life begins at conception. You are welcome to discuss with me why you think rising ocean temperatures are just a fluke. You are welcome to come into my home and talk to me about why you think Democrats way of doing business isn’t the right way. You’ll do so respectfully and I won’t roll my eyes, because that’s the way grown-ups talk to each other.

A few years back, Republicans crossed a line. Did you feel it?