But this time around, that’s no longer enough. Four years ago, I wrote to you to ask you not to vote for Donald Trump.
#WHERE TO WATCH THE UNHOLY TV#
You’re not an extremist, and you’ve never once said anything as repulsive as what people now seem comfortable saying on TV and social media (and in emails to your son, I might add). If you’d have had your choice, any other Republican would have been elected but Trump. I mean, the guy can’t even Songbird! You demanded better of me in the papers I turned in when I was in middle school. Now that fool has his finger on the nuclear button - which I think he thinks is an actual button - and I can’t understand why you’re OK with this. I still think about the joke you made when we walked past Trump Tower in New York when I was kid. God knows what else has happened these last four years that executive privilege has allowed him to obscure from public view. He enriches himself,his family members, and his business with expenditures straight from the public treasury. He lies blatantly and habitually, about both the smallest and largest of things. He attacks whistleblowers (career army officers, that is). He cheats on his wife with porn stars (and bribes them with illegal campaign funds). Now Donald Trump gushes over foreign strongmen. All those conversations about American dignity, the power of private enterprise, the sacredness of the Oval Office, the primacy of the rule of law. You hold no position of power besides the one we all have as voters, but I guess I just always thought you believed in the lessons you taught me, and the things we used to listen to on talk radio on our drives home from the lake. This does not feel like a good road we are going down… Look, I know you’re not to blame for this. If not for me, then for the world that will be left to your grandchildren. Not since I was a kid have I craved to hear your strong voice more, to hear you say anything reassuring, inspiring, morally cogent. Because every step of the way, I’ve heard you defend, rationalize, or enable him and the politicians around him. And now people are marching with tiki-torches shouting, “the Jews will not replace us.” What is happening?! Black men are shot down in the streets? Foreign nations are offering bounties on American soldiers? And the President of the United States defends, rationalizes, or does nothing to stop this? I’d say that’s insane, but I’m too heartbroken. Great-grandpa fought against the Russians in WWI, and granddad landed at Normandy to stop the rise of fascism. Our relatives on your side fought for the Union in the Civil War. Meanwhile, the U.S., which was built on immigration - grandma being one who fled the ravages of war in Europe for a better life here - is now a bastion of anti-immigrant hysteria. My children - your grandchildren - are deprived of their friends and school. It hasn’t been safe to see you guys or grandma for months, despite being just a plane ride away. The laughingstock of the developed world for our woeful response to a pandemic. So how is it even possible that we’re here? Unable to travel, banned from entry by countless nations. No law can make people virtuous - that obligation rests on every individual. Rights must be protected, privacy respected. Government is best when limited, but it’s nonetheless necessary.
Politically, I’m pretty much the same, too. I believe this exceptionalism comes with responsibilities. I believe in a better future and I believe in American exceptionalism, the idea that the system we were given by the Founding Fathers, although imperfect, has been an incredible vehicle for progress, moral improvement, and greatness, unlike any other system of government or country yet conceived. I still believe, deep in my bones, all the fundamental things you not only talked to me about, but showed me when I was little.
In fact, that’s sort of the weirdest thing. I’ve tried to read and learn as much as possible, just as you taught me. For the last four years, there has been an elephant in the room - I’d joke and call it an orange elephant, but I’m nervous that might end this earnest conversation before it even begins.Have I changed? I mean, yes, of course I have. No copyright infringement intended Our relationship is strained. Non-profit,educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use. Fairuse is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. ✔ Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use”for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, & research.
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