It’s like this, Senator. You work for us. We, your constituents, residents of Texas. You took an oath to serve us. You did not pledge to slavishly grovel and kowtow exclusively to the needs of your donors.
Nor did you swear to rubber stamp an authoritarian mendacious President as dangerous as Donald Trump. A man who made quite clear, while campaigning, that his Presidency would be fueled by hatred, bigotry, xenophobia, misogyny, deceit, dangerous, unethical incompetence and character assassination.
We the people pay your salary as well as for your retirement benefits and Cadillac level health care coverage. The kind of which enabled former Vice President Dick Cheney to have a heart transplant. The same of which you and your Republican colleagues intend to strip away from 20-30 million Americans.
We called, visited, wrote to, faxed your offices in Texas and Washington, D.C. because of several reasons. Anger over losing is not one of them.
We called, showed up and wrote to you because we are angry and terrified by Trump’s unconstitutional Muslim travel ban, not to mention his incompetent, unqualified nominee for Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos.
We are sickened by the President’s unsuitable choice for the US General Attorney, Jeff Sessions, a man with a known racist past.
We are outraged by your Party’s Senate Majority Leader for censuring Senator Elizabeth Warren for reading the remarks of the late widow of a Civil Rights icon on the Senate floor with regard to Session’s past actions. Your self-righteous, anti-democratic remarks in response smacked of faux high moral smugness and the usual old white man sexist piggery.
Constituents showed up at your and Senator Ted Cruz’s offices because your staff did not answer the phones, or unplugged the phones or automatically switched the calls to voice mail. Senator Cruz’s Houston staff actually called the police when peaceful visitors stopped by for a visit because constituents couldn't get through by phone. Your visitors were not left wing crackpots from “other organizations” as your Party would like to demean. These were the people you are supposed to represent.
In a recent interview on NPR, David Frum, the former G.W. Bush staffer said Trump will leave the White House as a much wealthier man. We the people won’t know by how much because the President refuses to release his tax returns. Mr. Frum believes Trump’s Presidency could very well be a nationalistic authoritarian kleptocracy. When asked how his Party would react to such an administration Mr. Frum answered the Republicans will look the other day.
Indeed you will, “Senator” Cornyn.
This is why we jammed your phone lines and brought down your websites.
We know your Party relies upon gerrymandering, voter suppression efforts, rogue FBI, dark, dirty money and Russian hackers to win anymore.
You, Sir, are not doing your job. Worse, you are a spineless traitor to the office you have the privilege of holding. Your constituents deserve far better than you.
You remained silent when Donald Trump led a hateful birther movement against our duly elected President Obama. He won the popular vote and Electoral College. Twice. Hands down. Without the help of rogue FBI or Russian hackers who want to bring our country down.
You remain silent while the President Trump appoints unethical, self-serving incompetent kleptocrats to high Cabinet positions.
You remain silent while taxpayers fork out security for the First Lady and her son’s home in Manhattan. If Mrs. Obama had chosen to remain in Chicago in 2009 in order for their daughters to finish the school year, you, Mr. Cornyn would have led the faux outrage crusade. I can envision your high moral hypocrisy on Fox “News.” The Obamas are bilking taxpayers!
You led the charge to block President Obama from his rightful Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland. You and your Party didn’t bother to show a modicum of basic decency to give Mr. Garland his democratically deserved hearing.
And now you expect us to happily go along with your Party’s choice of a pro corporate hack? Someone like Chief Justice John Roberts who dealt us crippling blows called Citizen’s United? And who also wielded an ax to voting rights?
I don’t think so.
I don’t suppose you have a clue about your constituents who are naturalized American citizens. At a speak out at Rice University in Houston last week, you were not there to listen to the heartbreaking stories told by fearful new citizens and our guests, international students and faculty that comprise a rich and diverse communities at Rice University as well as the renowned Texas Medical Center in the state’s largest city, Houston.
You were not there to witness the tears of an undergraduate student from one of the banned countries when he announced he could not return to his country to say goodbye to his dying grandmother. The student feared he could not get back into the US despite the status of his visa.
You were not there when a post doctoral appointee told us she and her husband abroad could not be reunited for fear that if she and her son left to join him, she would have to give up her appointment at Rice due to fear of the ban. Despite the status of her and her child’s visa.
You were not there when a green card holder, a professor from Mexico, a scientist, shared his despair and angst with us. He rightly feels insulted, humiliated by Trump’s remarks about Mexicans. His foreign students, both graduate and undergraduate cannot focus. They cannot study because of their fear for their present and future in this country, the land of immigrants. They know the status of their visas is up for grabs under Trump and do nothing wimps like you.
You were not there when a woman from Egypt, a green card holder, said she was afraid to visit her family there. “What if Egypt is added to the list when I am gone?” she asked. “What next?”
You were not there when an American anthropology professor told us why she had to cancel an international conference she had organized here in the U.S. Scientific research is a global endeavor. When some of the participants could not enter the US because of Trump’s ban, other participants from Europe also decided not to attend. In solidarity for their colleagues from banned countries.
You were not there when our guests, our international students told us Donald Trump made them feel like second class citizens, unworthy to be here. How they had such high hopes and how privileged they are to have been accepted into an American university. Now they are afraid and want to go home, as bad as it is in some cases.
You and your Party, Senator Cornyn, are below the lowest of the very worst of America. Your faux moral outrage, your hopeless hypocrisy and impotent cowardice in looking away from the fascist dictator who runs rough shod over basic human decency tells us everything we need to know about you and your Party.
A house of lies.
I expect if Donald Trump insisted upon establishing internment camps and gas chambers for “others”, you, Senator Cornyn, would blindly follow, though you would engage clever message masters to make it seem reasonable for the “others” to be jailed or killed.
Expect us. We are not going away.
We are your constituents.
Protest of Trump’s Muslim ban, Houston, January 29, 2017
