Congressman Fitzpatrick:
Last Friday I drove into the New Hope-Solebury high school parking lot on my way to join a group of very concerned citizens who were meeting with Republican State Representative Wendi Thomas. Their subject of concern was the incendiary racist rhetoric being spewed constantly by this Republican president and therefore, the vital need for other Republican leaders to vigorously and publicly renounce such language lest such ugly sentiments become normalized and lead to violence against the innocent. One of my friends saw you in the parking lot, just having left her office as I entered the lot and asked if I had seen you. I did not, but I hoped that your words to Representative Thomas were not about empty pleasantries or fundraising. I hoped your presence there was not simply a photo-op to show solidarity with your Republican Party which has been set so morally adrift by its leader in the White House. I hoped you spoke to her about the moral crisis facing your Republican Party today and what both of you could do to resolve it. But thankfully, I had no need to hope for myself, since I was glad to be among people, moral patriots, who took the time to speak to their representative about the moral crisis our country faces under Republican leadership today.
My fellow citizens spoke earnestly about their concern about the racist rhetoric coming from the leader of your Republican Party who almost daily defiles the office of the presidency with his racist invective and policies. These are not ordinary times. There is a moral rot in the national Republican agenda and rhetoric, and all leaders, especially Republican leaders, need to speak out vociferously against the racist rhetoric that is used to divide our country with the old baseless racial fears and prejudices. They urged their representative to speak out loudly against her Republican party when such racist sentiments are expressed. I then told her that most likely she was a nice person and did not in her heart agree to the racism spewing forth from our White House. But I told her she is now caught in a critical time much like leaders were caught in 1860 when facing the moral question of slavery that so divided our country then. If Republican leaders at all levels don't speak out against the obvious moral error of their party leaders, they become complicit. Their silence normalizes the bad language and bad behavior it could incite. And the insidious seeds of the evil of racism, which were planted in our land 400 years ago almost to the day, will flourish in this toxic soil that our president is fertilizing every day with his loud and powerful megaphone. All leaders therefore must speak out loudly and try to end this disgusting immoral behavior coming from the very top of this fallen Republican Party. Or our country will not be a source of pride, but of shame.
We hoped our words left a mark on the soul of this Republican representative. But when we woke up the next day, we realized it was too late for some in our country. A white supremacist drove down from Dallas to El Paso looking to kill Mexicans. His manifesto contained language quite similar to the hate speech our Republican president had constantly spewed from his mouth and still plans to continue to use in his 2020 campaign. These hateful racist words led to a trail of violence in the peaceful border town of El Paso where now 22 innocent people lay dead and many more wounded.
The president, unable to emote any sincere empathy to those suffering from the loss of loved ones, shamelessly returned to the scene of the crime he in part had inspired and consistent with his pathological narcissism, spoke of the crowd size of his previous rally there. Then, on the very same day, he callously carried out a raid on over 600 hard-working immigrant families in Mississippi which resulted in young school children having no parents to return to. Did you hear the crying child sobbing for her parents? "Government, please put your heart -- let my parents be free with everybody else, please," she pleads."I need my dad ... mommy," the girl cried. "My dad didn't do nothing. He's not a criminal." The Republican president later commented on this state-sanctioned cruelty to children by saying the ICE raids were a very good deterrent. Is this the America your Republican Party is leading us to? A country of cruelty and racism? If you disagree, why aren’t you speaking out loudly about these issues?
You are home now in our district on August recess. You have, without giving advance notice to most of your constituents, held meetings and made appearances like the one with Representative Thomas. But you have failed to conduct a real live town hall with your constituents where they can ask you about these critical issues facing our country today. We need to hear from you about how to stop the continuing racist rhetoric of this Republican president which can incite violence from white supremacists and decrease the safety of all Americans. We need to hear from you about how to stop the continuing planned cruelty to immigrant children in cages at the border or during future ICE raids. By refusing to speak out publicly against the ugly excesses of this administration, you are giving tacit approval to these policies of cruelty and racism. Why are you silent? Listen to the crying children, and then find your voice.