(All of you could write your own, mostly better than this, but what the hell, here’s mine)
After hearing you make his offer of working with Democrats in improving the current immigration laws, and your expressing confidence that this will mark a new collegiality, a trust that extends across party lines, we were all happy that we saw a new rational and compassion President Donald J. Trump.
We disagree with many of his statements of fact that are not consistent with numerous bi-partisan and Republican sources, including how to stem the flow of narcotics, those with criminal intent and others who sadly do not meet the international criteria for refugee status. The most important element of your speech was the confidence that we can restore a comity that has been absent for a long time.
Your words of trust, unfortunately were contrasted with your demand that the opposition party negotiate and then approve a complex procedure to meet the goals you describe, not in the months that such a project would require, but in one calendar week, which is four legislative days. This happens to be the number of days that was allotted for Emperor Hirohito to agree to surrender his country to the United States to end WWII. We demanded these term of unconditional surrender, since War was thrust upon us by a sneak attack, and we had been in mortal combat for four years. There was no trust between us.
Donald Trump, rather than serving as the President of the United States of America, you have divided us with hatred between political parties, friends and families, greater than any time sinceing since the Civil War. The echos of that war extend to this day, in more ways than we care to acknowledge, but we were divided then by history, by differing cultures among the states, not by a single person who mastered an internet technology that allows the proliferation of lies and hatred. Politics is meant to be contentious, as it is a proxy for wars, whether by spears and catapults or weapons of mass destruction —from nuclear missles to assault rifles.
Each year we have thousands of elections in this country at every level, from school boards, state legislatures to the the two elected branches of the Federal government. While elections certainly do matter, designed to have the elected officials represent the values of his/her supporters, the unstated assumption, one that you have never shown an appreciation for, is the overriding goal of preserving the entity, whether the city council or the government of the United States.
The election is about winning the office, but once that is over, it is sustaining the institution, most importantly, when the institution is that which preserves and protects the myriad functions of a government that is based on a document now 231 years old, our Constitution — as amended and enhanced over the centuries.
We are now in the longest closure of government in our history. While you have decried what you calls “the Deep State” and so from this view are starving this evil beast, it is only such to a mind that has no desire to understand the functions of this bureaucracy, and by doing so actually decrease waste and corruption. President Trump, you live by hatred of your enemies, which sadly now includes a majority of Americans.
You are insisting on unconditional surrender, in a war of your making that should have been pursued by the process of politics- that messy, often corrupt, system that allows countries to exist. That’s the job of a politician, whether one who is saluted in parades or does his/her work on a steady responsible basis in the bowels of that “deep state.”
We will not let you destroy what this country is by defining it in your grotesque light. You are blind to those who struggle, and often suffer, but they are part of this country. You have often mentioned the option of your declaring a National Emergency, which is many ways would make you a dictator rather than a president. These laws were written under the assumption that it would be used by those such as our previous presidents, whose goal was not to destroy the political opposition, but to preserve, protect and defend, not only the letter our our Constitution, but the spirit.
We dare not allow your lack of empathy for those who suffer, in this case the federal government employees, to prevail over human compassion. We will not allow your willful ignorance of the function of government to allow you to destroy it. It is you who declared war on the opposition political party, after first capturing your own.
The United States of America will not be transformed in your image, or not without a fight, since even if we were to surrender, it would no longer be to the country that we revere.
