I awoke with a bolt at 2:00 a.m. Tuesday. Well, not with a bolt. I woke screaming for help, over and over again. It’s been awhile since I’ve had such a vivid nightmare. My dreams, like a lot of writers, are often memorable. Sometimes funny. Sometimes confusing. Oftentimes meaningless.

But I knew the minute I sat up that this one wasn’t. It came with a message.

I’m not going to go into details over than to say that the nightmare involved an assault. I suppose that’s not all that telling given that our own president is a rapist who has bragged about sexually assaulting women. I imagine women the world over have nightmares about being violated when they live in countries dominated by authoritarians who employ rape as a weapon. I can say, however, that never in my lifetime did I imagine any US president using rape as a weapon but Trump has changed all that.

As I watch women being snatched off the streets by police and ICE, I do not put it past anyone in power in Trump’s administration to use rape or the threat of rape as a means of control. That millions of Americans voted to put a rapist in the position of the presidency is an indicator that they would be fine with people they consider “less than” being violated. Don’t tell me that’s not who we are as Americans because it is exactly who we are. We are providing the tools of war for Netanyahu’s forces to do that and much worse to Palestinians.

But that’s not the message that came to me on the heels of my nightmare. What came to me was the cold realization that some of these women and girls being snatched up by our government have already suffered assaults. Some of these women who are being kidnapped by ICE have already been raped. They’ve already suffered abuse. Some by those they trust. Some by strangers.

As I sat upright in my bed, a shattering awareness came over me. These women being disappeared by the Trump administration are screaming for help because they are being traumatized not only by the actual physical assault underway but by the memory of past assaults, prior rapes.

And yet again their cries go unanswered.

Media has focused on the men being disappeared. We know very little about the women who are being snatched up by the thugs who work for Trump. Masked men who provide no identity and no signed warrants.

When in this country have we ever let our girls or boys be kidnapped by complete strangers wearing masks and posing as law enforcement? I thought that was something Democrats and Republicans and the Non-affiliated alike taught our children – if someone you don’t know tries to lure you into a vehicle or tries to kidnap you, run, fight, scream, do whatever you can to get away.

Yet, today, millions of us think nothing of masked men physically roughing up men and women on our streets and throwing them into a van to be taken to God knows where. Even our Congressional leaders who are meant to protect the masses can’t tell us where people are being disappeared to. They can’t even stop our young men from being kidnapped and disappeared. Andry Hernandez Romero anyone?

The sun is up now and it’s a brilliant bluebird day here in Oregon. Everything looks different in the daylight than in the dark of night, doesn’t it?

But it doesn’t change anything. The nightmare lingers as does the knowledge that Trump, a rapist, wants people to fear him. He will use rape or battering or kidnapping or whatever means possible to control us. To silence us. To make us bend to his will. That’s what rapists do. It’s never about pleasure. It’s always about control.

I see clearly who he is in the dead of night and the light of day.

The courts, of course, have the power to stop rapists. But the track record in the US is abysmal. According to RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network), for every 1,000 rapes reported only about half-a-dozen rapists end up incarcerated. That’s because we the people keep putting white men in control of our country and our courts.

Jake Tapper didn’t mention it, but President Joe Biden appointed more women judges to the federal bench than any other president in my lifetime. Of the 200 appointments 63% were women, compared to Trump’s first term where he appointed 229 judges only 24% of which were women.

Voters are so woefully ignorant. Deportation won’t stop the majority of rapists, but electing a president who puts more women on the bench will surely lead to more rapists being incarcerated. If you want to get rapists off the streets try voting better. Representation matters.

Currently, one in five females suffers rape or attempted rape in the U.S.. In 2015, the year American voters elected Trump the rapist to the presidency, National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) estimated that there were 431,840 women were raped or sexually assaulted in the US. And voters did this with full knowledge that Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women.

The truth is Trump is not only a rapist, he’s a pervert and still millions of Americans, men and women, are perfectly okay with that. Many of them who claim to be evangelical Christians. Some of them my own extended family members.

If we truly want safer communities, we the people have to begin by voting for it.

We should start by naming the wrongdoing. Trump should always be referred to by the title the courts have assigned him – a rapist and felon. If Ted Bundy had used his celebrity status to earn him a title of president, would we forget he was a rapist first, then a murderer? Or would Media just call him President Bundy?

Ask yourself what would you do if that was your daughter or granddaughter, your son or grandson being kidnapped by men wearing masks, showing no ID, and no signed warrants. Then, whatever it is you would do in that situation, do it for your neighbors.

That’s the core message of Scriptures. And it is the only way to stop Trump the rapist.