“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken
Dear President Trump:
Immediately after your election, your defenders and detractors alike opined perhaps you were new to politics and simply did not understand the Constitution you swore to “preserve, protect and defend” or the nature of our governmental system of check and balances.
Sixteen months later, it is clear you simply lack a basic knowledge of our nation’s history, fail to respect our Constitution and Bill of Rights, frequently show contempt for the liberties they afford, demonstrate a profound disregard for the rule of law, and have debased the integrity of and respect for the office of president.
In retrospect, your actions were tragically foreseeable. During your campaign, you regularly used demeaning nicknames for your opponents and many or our nation’s immigrants, encouraged supporters to “knock the crap” out of protesters, bragged about grabbing women’s genitals, claimed you could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose a vote and launched an unprecedented and dangerous assault on the media.
Since your inauguration, you have made unsubstantial claims your inaugural crowd was larger than Obama’s; you won the 2016 popular vote; President Obama bugged your Trump Tower offices; the head of the boy scouts called advising your speech was the greatest ever; the New York Times is failing; Mexico will pay for the wall; the FBI infiltrated your campaign; an Indiana-born judge of Mexican ancestry could not be fair; you would not personally benefit from the tax cut bill; you would release your tax returns; and two pillars of our democracy, a free press, which Jefferson called, “one of the great bulwarks of liberty [that]can never be restrained but by a despotic government”, and an independent judiciary are conspiring against you – All utterly FALSE statements!
You have become the nation’s number one purveyor of FAKE NEWS!
As a result, you shoulder most of the blame for the inability of many Americans to distinguish between truth and fiction, and your astonishing willingness to embrace “alternative” or invented facts as a standard is unacceptable!
More frightening are your Tweets suggesting NFL players should be “fired” for protesting during the national anthem, and more recently stating, “maybe [they] shouldn’t be in the country”. However distasteful such actions may be, the right of peaceful protest is enshrined in the Bill of Rights.
While, as a veteran, I am personally affronted by people who disrespect our flag or national anthem, I am reminded of a quote attributed to Voltaire; “I Disapprove of What You Say, But I Will Defend to the Death Your Right to Say It.”
The failure of so many [mostly Republican] members of Congress who profess to love democracy and our country are not up-in-arms to protest your actions is difficult to fathom. They’ve clearly forgotten their oath of office and to stand up for the truth rather than pandering to partisan politics or knuckling under to threats you will undermine their reelection campaigns if they disagree with you or challenge your actions or false statements.
Personally, I would rather live in a nation where flag desecration and kneeling during the anthem are permissible forms of free speech rather than in a society without a constitution such as ours that, among other liberties, protects such distasteful speech.
Clearly, however, you don’t like America or Americans who disagree with you!
Perhaps you should consider moving to a country without America’s constitutionally protected liberties but where flag defilers, anthem dissenters and protesters who disagree with their autocratic leaders are jailed or worse.
Just guessing, but I’ll bet Kim Jong Un would love to make a “deal” with you to open a Trump tower in downtown Pyongyang!
Sincerely,
