We are disgusted by the rhetoric, lies and blatant disregard for the American people occurring during this week’s “Trump Show” that replaced what should have been a Republican National Convention.

An incredibly weak GOP again knuckled under to a bully and voted to forgo a national party platform to espouse complete support for President Trump, a dangerous, self-centered hypocrite who has done little to lead America out of the health and economic crisis caused by a pandemic that has claimed the lives of nearly 180,000 people, jeopardized the livelihoods of millions of others and clouded the futures of college, primary and secondary school students across the nation.

Speaker after speaker at the televised “convention,” including President Trump, lied about the “great” things the president supposedly has done to curb the pandemic and to boost health care, education, job creation and the economy, voting rights, criminal justice and to help immigrants and African-Americans.

Fact checkers have had steady work this week debunking the speakers’ dozens of baseless claims. But we all know the truth — from the president’s belief that the pandemic was a hoax or that taking a swig of disinfectant could cure it to his administration still fighting in court to dismantle health care safeguards for pre-existing conditions that are part of the Affordable Care Act.

During this “convention,” he and his cronies have tried to take credit for the booming economy he inherited from the Obama-Biden years even as unemployment levels currently have risen to the highest levels since the Great Depression.

His administration has worked to defund public schools by trying to move federal dollars to private institutions, sent federal storm troopers into U.S. cities to quell protests and emboldened white supremacists with his love of statues dedicated to racist traitors of the past.

Football great Herschel Walker’s stock dropped in our estimation as he appeared at the “convention” to incredibly praise the president’s character, claim he isn’t a racist and say the president shows how much he cares about social justice and the Black community by his actions.

Where has Mr. Walker been these past three and a half years? President Trump’s non-action during the pandemic has caused widespread pain, with virus transmission and deaths disproportionately hurting Black and brown communities and with 30 million people out of work. His policies also have contributed to the growing wage gap between Black people and white people. He also has called neo-Nazis and white supremacists who brought violence, bloodshed and death to Charlottesville during 2017’s “Unite the Right” rally “very fine people.”

And under the Trump administration, the U.S. Justice Department has rolled back civil rights investigations into patterns and practices of discriminatory, abusive and/or unconstitutional policing by local law enforcement agencies, while the U.S. Department of Education also has rolled back civil rights investigations into disparate school discipline for children of color and disabled students.

He has done nothing to stop the police abuse and killing of unarmed Black people, but has fanned the flames of racial hatred and fear during continuing protests over police brutality and racial injustice.

The U.S. Justice Department has stood by idly as we watched the nation roil with the videotaped death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer. His administration has been silent on the police killing of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Ky., in March and shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis., this week.

With this GOP “convention,” we were most insulted by President Trump’s misuse of five immigrants from Ghana, Sudan, India, Lebanon and Bolivia by staging a White House ceremony swearing them in as new U.S. citizens. It was both disingenuous and hypocritical. The five were mere props to boost support for his re-election. We all know the truth about his immigrant stance and his unconscionable effort to separate immigrant children from their parents.

Here is a president who has tried his best to lock down America’s borders specifically to keep out people of color. He has even gone so far to try to take billions from the military budget to build a wall along our border with Mexico.

Under his administration’s directive, thousands of children from Mexico and Central America have been separated from their undocumented parents at the border, caged and then shipped off to foster homes and possible adoption by strangers.

He also has sought to dismantle the DACA program for youngsters who were brought to the United States years ago as children by their parents, and he has asked why America would want immigrants from “sh..hole countries,” such as African nations, Haiti and El Salvador, instead of from places like Norway.

His administration’s latest efforts have included defunding and literally dismantling the machinery in the U.S. Postal Service to impact the results of November’s presidential election. He has no respect for democracy or the American voter.

We have been sickened by the dishonesty and misinformation of this “convention,” and hope voters clearly see President Trump for what he is – a fraud – and deny his bid for another four years in the White House.