It has been an age since a “letter;” I stopped when it became apparent Trump would be the Republican nominee; to comment on the world meant mentioning him – I couldn’t, toxic to me.
And Biden was failing, faltering, laying open a path to put Trump in the White House.
Then Biden withdrew, Harris pulled the Democratic Party together in a New York minute; as Sherlock would say, the game was afoot.
My family was Republican, I was Republican, left in the Reagan years, when the seeds of today’s Republican party were sown, the beginning of an unholy, to me, alliance between the GOP and the Christian Right, about votes for the GOP, about abortion for the Christian Right.
For decades it’s gone on, paying off for the Christian Right, thanks to the current Supreme Court.
Two years ago, I registered as a Republican, even if the Republican Party as I knew it no longer existed. Registered, I can fight for it, in small ways.
This is from The Atlantic magazine’s endorsement of Kamala Harris, only its fourth in a history predating Lincoln, who it also endorsed.
“If you’re a conservative who can’t abide Harris’s tax and immigration policies, but who is also offended by the rottenness of the Republican Party, only Trump’s final defeat will allow your party to return to health … We believe that American politics are healthiest when vibrant conservative and liberal parties fight it out on matters of policy.”
This is a fight for country and party. Trump is not a Republican, having perverted the Republican Party to serve his narcistic needs.
His claim to fame is he is a successful businessman, telling folks he got a small loan from his dad to get started. Not true. His father bailed him out over and over. Read “Lucky Loser,” they have the receipts.
“The Apprentice” saved him; in need of cash flow, he got it from posing as a successful businessman, over $400 million in desperately needed dollars. While the show was running he went through two bankruptcies, out of, what, six? Eight?
John Miller, head of marketing for NBC at the time, is on an apology tour for his role in convincing people Trump was a successful businessman.
Does no one see he is deteriorating in front of us, under the glare of klieg lights? Dancing when people have collapsed at one of his rallies, discussing Arnold Palmer’s genitals? Suggesting guns be aimed at Liz Cheney?
The media, which Trump hates, does not hold him accountable as they did Biden.
What is any Christian thinking, voting for him, a man who has cheated almost everyone who has ever worked for him, refusing to pay what they are owed, who’s cheated on his wives, who’s been ordered to pay compensation to a woman he assaulted? The judge called it rape.
Roy Cohn, who did Joe McCarthy’s dirty work, denied he was gay even as he died of AIDS, trained Trump to attack, attack, deny, deny. Cohn was one of the most execrable characters of the 20th century.
Trump is being supported by lots of billionaires, including Elon Musk, who has got to be the most brilliant, looniest character ever. And who seems to have been chatting with Putin regularly.
Trump is offering to help shelter billionaire’s wealth.
We have the greatest income gap since the Gilded Age, when the country tottered between revolution and reform. Teddy Roosevelt’s reforms saved us from oligarchy.
Trump will advance oligarchy.
The Romans built their empire on the backs of slaves. The United States has a dirty secret, it’s built on the backs of immigrants. Our immigration policy has been flawed since there was immigration policy.
Trump rallied the troops to block immigration reform in Congress because he wanted to campaign on the issue, a plan crafted by Republicans. Biden had caved.
Unless you’re Native American, you’re an immigrant or descended from one.
But German, Swedish, Italian, Polish immigrants were white. Many new arrivals have different skin colors, not okay. We have not resolved our racist past.
Trump promises mass deportations.
Be prepared to pay higher prices on everything. Milk will skyrocket without immigrants to work the fields. Farmers will lose their livelihood.
His tariffs? Inflation will skyrocket because we’ve outsourced nearly everything.
Is he a fascist? Yes. Is he Hitler like? No, more like Mussolini. But behind him, are people not too morally far from Hitler’s men. Project 2025.
Those folks are ideological descendants of people who have wanted America fascist for over a century, have worked at it, now within a vote of getting it.
John Kelly, retired general, Trump’s longest serving Chief of Staff, denounced him as fascist.
Other Republicans repudiate Trump. Pence has, Liz Cheney, her father, former VP Dick Cheney has, Shawn Reilly, Mayor of Waukesha, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Stephanie Grisham, Jimmy McCain, son of John, seventeen members of the Ronald Reagan’s staff, saying Reagan would support Harris, former Senator Jeff Flake; they number in the hundreds.
Especially since his Madison Square Garden rally turned into a racist debacle.
Evil is afoot. Stop it. Kamala may not be your ideal candidate though she has hope, is competent, can complete a sentence. Or withhold your vote from Trump. Write yourself in.
Dorothy Thompson, a pioneering journalist, exiled from Germany by the Nazis, wrote:
“No people ever recognize their dictator in advance. He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship. He always represents himself as the instrument – the Incorporated National Will. … When our dictator turns up you can depend on it that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American. And nobody will ever say “Heil” to him, nor will they call him “Führer” or “Duce.” But they will greet him with one great big, universal, democratic, sheeplike bleat of “O.K., Chief! Fix it like you wanna, Chief! Oh Kaaaay!”*
I hear the bleating in the streets.
Time for it to stop.
*New York Herald column, February 12, 1937
Tags: Donald Trump, kamala-harris, news, Politics, Trump
Letter from the Vineyard 
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