A few days ago, Donald Trump held an impromptu campaign rally in a Cincinnati manufacturing plant. As is his custom he told a lie or three whipped up the crowd with red meat and added new grist for the mill. He called the Democratic party treasonous and un-American. A lot has been made of his words and the laughter from the admiring throng. I am not surprised or even bothered by spontaneous or nervous laughter at a tasteless joke. What followed the laughter was the disturbing part---applause. Mr. Trump has so corrupted the morals of a once respected Party, that extolling the virtues of a hostile government to sabotage an opponent was not enough. He has now resorted to getting his crowds to respond like trained seals. Here’s some bait, clap, clap, clap!
The few faint voices in the Republican wilderness who try to separate their personal morality from their votes ring as hollow as the bell tower in that shining city on a hill. The once proud Party of Lincoln has trampled the vintage of his memory. We have watched an alleged child molester vie for the Senate, a self-confessed Nazi enter the race for Congress and a womanizing abuser, ascend to the Presidency. The common thread, they are Republicans.
The word unprecedented has been thrown around so much it may soon become a prop at a game of beach Frisbee. I cast my first vote for President as a Democrat in 1974 and was proud to be a member of a changing party that drummed out racist Alabama governor George Wallace and made the waters so hot for Lyndon Johnson that the Vietnam War hounded him from office. Change is good, but change must come from within or it is just a temporary prophylactic fix. In less than a week, the White House Chief of Staff, John Kelly, has called immigrant dreamers, “lazy” the President called Democratic dissenters un-American and treasonous, and a California Congressman has conspired to hide potential illegality.
On cue, after another horrendous show of leaderless childishness, the Republican Party is telling us we did not hear what we heard or us “snowflakes” are just too sensitive. Donald Trump seems intent on sowing as much discord, to lend aid and comfort, to those no longer embarrassed to hide their ignorance and peer through the cutouts of a pillowcase. The daily Trump columns and blaring warnings from our smartphones are becoming exhaustively hard to stomach. We have a President that we must decide whether to throw out or throw up on.
Donald Trump is under some delusion that he is “dear leader” no one in America can be forced to cheer him or even like him. No one in America is compelled to stand for a flag they feel is bullet proof for their neighbors but not them. No group in America are sons of bitches. I pointed out the commonality of the Republican Party previously, this time the common thread is that the groups he disparages with alarming regularity are black and brown; The Congressional Black Caucus, Black players in the National Football League and Brown immigrants.
The time is here, the time is now
Vote in ‘18 for Change and #ReleasetheNunes