Mr. Trump, you tell it like it is. You are bold and audacious. You don’t go in for political correctness. You speak your mind. You are creating a movement around your authoritarian personality employing black and white thinking, simple solutions for complex problems and an intolerance of ambiguity. Your slogan speeches, bumper sticker discourses, shock jock politics, political bullying and reality show action figure posturing have seduced the press and unified the lowest common elements of the frustrated and the frightened. You rally support around bigotry, stoke the flames of fear and find or fabricate enemies within and beyond our borders. You echo the styles of Governor George Wallace and Senator Joseph McCarthy, and you are beginning your career in a way not too dissimilar from the well known tyrants of world history. You are supported by actors, sports figures and politicians known for their vulgarity and crude populist rhetoric. You call Senator John McCain a loser for having been a prisoner of war. You want to build a wall to keep out the millions of Mexicans, whom you presume are rapists and criminals. You insult women incessantly. You want to close the door to Muslims in a country founded on religious freedom. Your competition are losers, Little Marco and Lyin’ Ted. You accuse Ted Cruz’s father of being in on the assassination of John F. Kennedy. If you shot somebody on 5th Avenue, you say, you wouldn’t loose any votes because presumably people would like you even if you killed people. You are going to pay the legal fees for Trump supporters that beat up protesters because you are very rich. After hearing your incendiary speech, some of your supporters attacked protesters and you, took a page out of Hugo Chavez’s playbook by blaming the protesters for the violence. You wrap yourself in the flag and audacious authoritarian populism for which you are unashamed and unapologetic. My question for you, Mr. Trump, is:
Have you no sense of decency, sir?
{feel free to forward if you wish}
NOTE:
The question “Have you no sense of decency,sir?” was asked by Joseph N. Welch, Chief Counsel for the United States Army, when the U.S. Army was being investigated for supposed Communist activities by Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1954. McCarthy grew popular by generating a fear of Communists in the US, investigating people with supposedly Communist affiliations and then ruining their reputations and careers. At one point in the hearing Welch said to McCarthy, “You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” This direct confrontation of Senator McCarthy was considered the beginning of the end of the 1950’s Red Scare, one of the ugliest episodes in U.S. history. With Mr. Trump and his formidable support we seem to be entering another ugly episode in U.S. history, one that threatens Republicans, Democrats and all U.S. citizens. May it end sooner rather than later.
“Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.” –John Dewey