The following is an open letter to my elected representatives, House Representative John Rutherford, Senator Marco Rubio and Senator Rick Scott. Hopefully you will have the opportunity to see this letter in a major Florida publication and hopefully you will be compelled to do the right thing.
Dear Senators Rubio, Scott and Representative John Rutherford:
First, I want it to be clear that I have no party affiliation, neither Republican nor Democrat, nor any “third party.” Second, I want it to be known that I care deeply about the United States, my country of birth, that which I have served during my time in the United States Navy and that which I continually and faithfully serve as a private American citizen. I also care about the state and region which I have decided to both occupy and serve as a productive tax-paying member of society. I have donated my time, my limited financial resources, my property and even (literally) my blood to serve this community.
As I write this I am represented in the federal government in Washington, D.C. by three white men, none of whom have any concern about anything other than high-dollar contributors and adhering to the Republican party line. Here’s what I have concluded regarding the aims and goals of the Republican party: First, Republicans have absolutely no regard for ordinary American citizens except to use their supporters as unwitting advocates of their quest for remaining in political power. Second, Republicans have but one goal: They want to keep money and power in the hands of the fewest members of our society as possible. I’m guessing that they know that they can control their rubes by offering silly and patently debunked conspiracy theories in order to distract their followers from hearing and seeing truthful testimony that clearly demonstrates malfeasance on the part of the Trump administration.
I am one of many American citizens that sees the damage done by the accumulation of wealth and power in the hands of a select few. Apparently it’s okay for a small number of well-financed entities, whether corporate or individuals, to buy their way into the American legislative process with campaign contributions, offers of lucrative post-congressional employment and acceptance of political influence offered by highly-paid corporate interests. Perhaps my fellow Americans see this as no big deal, just a cost of doing business in this modern world, but I do not. I am willing to speak the truth: That this an effort on the part of the Republican party to do everything in its power to cling to power irrespective of the will of the American people. The Republican party will do whatever it takes, gerrymandering, lying, misleading, obfuscating, whatever is necessary to keep their rubes distracted while they perpetuate their agenda, regardless of the will of the majority of the American people.
To whit: The majority of Americans want universal background checks for the purchase of firearms. What has been the position of the Republican party? Ignore the will of the people in favor of following the desires and aims of the gun lobby and the NRA.
The majority of Americans want reliable, affordable health care. The Republican response? To try to throw lower= and middle- income Americans off of their health care to satisfy the will of Big Pharma and the medical insurance lobby.
The majority of Americans want a comprehensive program to address the climate crisis and to limit the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The Republican response? Demand an increase in coal mining and oil drilling with little regard for the environmental consequences. This has been the result of the fossil-fuel industry’s monetary influence in congressional elections.
As of now, the United States isn’t a government “Of the People, For the People, By the People.” It has become a government of the people, for the moneyed interests, by their paid minions.
It is for that reason that I am submitting this open letter to my elected officials and to the media outlets that will hopefully publish it. One would think and even hope that there are principled members of Congress that would do the right thing irrespective of what their donor class wants. One would hope that there are members of Congress that would transcend their party and do that which is right. I know now, that in the age of weaponized politics, that the Republican Party stands for few things and I think, based upon the behavior of elected officials that call themselves Republican that they want the following:
Republicans want:
To limit voting rights so that they can prevent those who disagree with them from having a voice in American politics,
To cling to power whether the majority of their constituents disagree with them or not,
To keep wealth in the hands of as few members of American society as possible so as to limit the number of donors that they need to solicit,
To make upward mobility as hard as possible so as to keep the numbers of successful Americans limited to the few that they can solicit for campaign contributions,
To sow discord among the American citizenry in order to distract the American people from the graft and corruption that they are perpetrating,
To excuse any kind of transgression of the law by fellow Republicans and to then express outrage at the very behavior that they condemn should it take place by anyone not Republican.
This should be a red flag for those who do not want to see hypocrisy becoming a mainstay of American politics.
It is for this reason that I believe that the Republican Party is no longer a political party with the agenda of improving conditions for the American working class nor do the members of this party care thes lightest bit about the plight of the average American citizen. It is, instead, a cult that is willing to ignore facts, science, evidence and reasoning in order to advance a narrow and distorted view of how American society should behave. Anything that any Republican espouses becomes gospel whether it’s Roy Moore’s affinity for soliciting the favors of underage girls or Donald Trump’s attempted extortion of the government of Ukraine to dig up dirt on a political opponent.
While I have no deep love of the Democratic Party given their lack of spine when it comes to many important issues I cannot accept the destructive behavior of the Republican party in their role in dismantling the very pillars upon which our democracy depends. When one looks at the fundamental problems that our society faces today there is, at the root of that problem, someone’s greed driving this dysfunction. Look closer, and you’ll likely find a Republican member of government holding his or her hand out either demanding a campaign contribution or the promise of some lucrative endeavor following their government service.
This is as much our fault as American voters as it is the fault of the corrupt politicians that occupy government offices today. An informed, engaged and VOTING public would have removed these miscreants from office as a result of an informed citizenry exercising their responsibility to protect the sanctity of the Contitution of the United States. Unfortunately, we have elected officials that have obtained their offices as a result of a minority of eligible and motivated voters expressing their will while the majority of Floridians either chose to sit on the sidelines, were discouraged to vote or were prevented to exercise their birthright voting rights due to voter suppression efforts on the part of Republican lawmakers whom allow this travesty to continue unabated.
Most Floridians, and indeed most American citizens, know that efforts to keep a minority in power (including those that aren’t able to win a majority of support from the American people) is an undemocratic and tyrannical form of government. Over 3 million people voted to have a different person in the White House. You can argue the vagaries of the Electoral College and you can try to justify why a system that was put in place to placate the demands of slave-holding state representatives should be adhered to in this modern age of national consciousness. I, however, think that in this country, that the majority of the citizens of this country, regardless of state residency, should make the determination of who should lead this vast and multifaceted country. The Electoral Collegeis a hold-over of the slave owning days of this republic. It should be retired from public consciousness in the same way that slave ownership should be regarded as an anomaly and a grave misstep in our national quest to seek a higher consciousness. We should regard anything and everything tainted by the sin of slave ownership as an aberration, something that we acknowledge that was an ugly part of our past but recognized as the kind of ugliness and cruelty that we no longer wish to accept as a part of our civilized society.
Now, since this open letter is addressed to my elected representatives, namely Republicans Representative John Rutherford, Senator Marco Rubio and Senator Rick Scott, I have little confidence that any of these gentlemen will put our country first in their loyalties. All seem to have sworn allegiance to the Republican party and have shown that the will of their constituents have little, if any bearing on their choices as elected officials. They seem to have made it a point to represent their party at the expense of and disregarding the will of their constituents. They apparently care little about their constituents. I’m certain that if a generous benefactor were to support their election efforts that they would represent the view of that benefactor and not the will of the people of the state of Florida in the case of Senators Rubio and Scott and Florida’s fourth congressional district in the case of Representative Rutherford.
Therefore, it is my exhortation that the residents of Florida throw off the bonds of minority representation, vote against the oppressive minority that seeks to pit citizen against citizen, vote against the party that seeks to vilify immigrants, people of color and those not willing to adhere to fundamentalist Christianity.
In the words of the late Representative Elijah Cummings, “We’re better than this.”
I sincerely hope that the citizens of Florida can rise to this occasion and speak out with a clear voice that we do NOT accept corruption as just the price of doing business nor do we accept the corrupt behavior of ANY elected official whether it’s a President of the United States or a city or council member in our own neighborhood. It’s time for people to do the right thing.
Let me repeat that: It’s time for all people (whether in government or not) to do the right thing.
D. W.
U.S. Navy veteran and proud United States Citizen