An Open Letter to the Right

Dear Right Wing,

I’d like to come to an understanding. I realize there isn’t much motivation on your part since you’ve pretty much swept the halls of legislation with your own and even the Supreme Court has admitted to carrying the torch for conservative values, but in the event that things don’t go swimmingly; if prices don’t come down, if authoritarians around the world don’t tremble at President Trump’s capricious character, if fracking and drilling doesn’t produce more prosperity than environmental damage, if mortgage rates don’t drop…well, you know where I’m going with this…there could be a midterm swing back toward progressive candidates.

That’s the only leverage we Democrats have now but it isn’t nothing. So, in the interest of actually making things better, or at least more understandable, I’d like to explain ourselves so that maybe, just maybe, a few more of you may discover we aren’t crazy and hell-bent on destroying America. Quite the opposite, actually.

We have to use some historical perspective to calibrate this conversation. If you look back, we (Democrats, liberals, snowflakes, whatever), didn’t get this upset when George W. Bush was elected. Twice. We are still annoyed by the hanging chads which indicated a far greater probability of collusion than the “stolen election” of 2020, but there was no assault on the Capitol from it. We settled in. Protests, even angry demonstrations, have always been part of the human political landscape and so let’s take that out of this conversation, just for now.

You (Republicans, conservatives, Trump zealots, whatever) weren’t very happy with Bill Clinton, either. You excoriated him for dishonesty and his sexual behavior. You made it clear that you were the party of family values and were appalled that such a character could be in the White House. Obviously, we’ll come back to this later.

I was an idealistic young man in my 20s and many of us were really upset when Reagan was elected. Twice. He was ultra-conservative and we were resolute in our fight for equal rights for gay Americans, as well as issues like equal pay for women, and minority rights. We did take to the streets when Reagan scoffed at AIDS research (some liberal persuasion eventually changed his mind) and we were also certain that his supply side economics were going to increase the income divide and will make life harder for the working class, and ultimately create an oligarchy we may never recover from.

Debate that as much as you’d like but the record of evidence since is pretty convincing. And we still accepted the system of government that sustains our democracy and we knew President Reagan did, too. He upheld respect and dignity in his style and often spoke eloquently of his vision of America as the Shining City on the Hill.

When Obama was elected it was you who went ballistic. A movement, apoplectic with rage, grew from your ranks that denied he was an American. A conservative church hung him in effigy, and at your lowest point, right wing memes made him a chimpanzee. And it was Donald Trump who bankrolled the Birther Movement which fostered hatred, often racial, in parking lots with professed patriots in tricorn hats.

So why is it that today (and for the past 8 years) Democrats, liberals, and a few others, despise the man you just elected president for the 2nd time?

Believe it or not, it isn’t sour grapes or retribution, it is fear of what you have created as your operating system and betrayal of your own platform. Our proof of its danger is the man you put at the helm. You have created an ideological behemoth that has no consistency except for its contradictions.

This is anecdotal but I recall a Republican woman opining during the Clinton years about how she would have to tell her young children about the president’s indiscretions. She was angry at Democrats for allowing him to be their choice. You created a brand as big as Coca-Cola as the party of “family values” yet those values meant little next to victory and you scorned them to appease a trash talking, intentionally dehumanizing, womanizing, adulterous, candidate for no reason other than to install your economic intentions.

I know you’re tired of “grab em by the p…” recollections, but if you can throw your moral identity out the window just so that you can win…then who are you? If any Democratic presidential candidate had called a woman too unattractive to be president, or mocked a reporter with a physical challenge, or even if they’d just made insulting nicknames of their opponents, you would have lost your collective minds saying they are unfit for the dignity of our highest office. Yet you support the Republican who did.

So, who are you?

Many Republicans, right down to the wire, said they didn’t like Trump’s rhetorical style (as if that’s all it was) but supported his policies, and that was more than enough justification to overlook felony convictions, lies, cheating, racist dog whistles, etc. Three policies in particular:

1. Economic (lower taxes, deregulation, drilling more oil, and apparently you’ve come to love tariffs)
2. Border security and deportation.
3. Foreign policy (there was no invasion of Ukraine during Trump’s term, and Hamas, according to Trump, never would have attacked Israel)

Diving in to these policies, however, reveals more contradictions. If you were really interested in the economy then why did you excuse Trump’s failure to isolate, even to acknowledge, the severity of a virus that was killing citizens at a frightening pace and destroying supply chains that led to massive job loss?

I realize that the propaganda machine kicked in and led many Republicans into denying that COVID was severe or even existed, but let’s be frank – that was willful ignorance. Any deep dive into the history, science and data surrounding a coronavirus, how it spreads, and containment, demanded more serious measures and less flippancy (Clorox?) than Trump was willing to give.

It was an epic failure of leadership and he paid the price: He lost the election he denies to have lost.

Disagree with any part of that, but to judge us (the liberals as a reminder) of conspiracy, party collusion, or as enemies of democracy for encouraging masks and vaccines is criminally false.

And this leads to more contradictions. If you really care about economics then why aren’t you using more complete data to draw your conclusions? Personally, I will not deny that as president, Trump’s deregulation saw economic boosts and repatriation of investments abroad brought a boost, but his tax cuts did not yield his promised results and some credible analysis of that points to an increased income divide from continuing trickle down policy. That disparity can lower economic growth, slow the economy, and increase the level of debt.

Again, we can intelligently make arguments, but Republican voters refused to look critically at Trump and they would not allow Biden’s strategy any grace whatsoever. Biden did spent a vast amount of money that did trigger inflation but it was to save and create jobs and to aid struggling families and businesses.

The stock market is now up, unemployment is down and inflation is down. Those are real trends and so if Republicans are REALLY interested in economics, then why don’t they use all of the real data?

”Trump will make America safe by securing our borders” proclaimed Rep Ashley Hinson, one of your most ardent Trump supporters. Ok. Then why aren’t you using real data again? Border encounters are down 77% in 2024.

And why aren’t we talking about the reality of Trump’s sanctions on certain South American countries that led to more desperate Venezuelans, for example, to seek asylum, safety and opportunity in America? And at great risk.

We weren’t putting the immigration crisis onto Trump, but we have been trying to develop policy based on reality and to find reforms to create better immigration laws and procedures. Immigration and illegal crossings are nothing new and every party is historically complicit.

When candidate Trump told Republican lawmakers to stop working on bi-partisan solutions unless he became president, that is a contradiction of intent.

If border “control” and safety is really your concern, then why aren’t you also looking at the statistics we are looking at that show undocumented immigrants commiting crime at a far lower percentage than US citizens? Why isn’t the logic as clear to you that the vast majority come here to work and wish to stay OUT of trouble? And if it’s drug trafficking that really concerns you then why don’t we see the same statistics that most opioids, as an example, enter the US by legal means and in many cases from countries that aren’t at our southern border?

You would if you were looking, but you’re not, and that’s what we don’t understand. Can you understand then why we start to think that maybe this is a racial issue? And when white supremacy groups believe they are being vindicated by your immigration policy and your drumbeat of fear of an alien ”invasion” is it so hard to understand that some of us are thinking there just might be a sub agenda to create a white, Christian America? White supremacists sure think so. We saw them with Nazi flags, Confederate flags and Trump flags at his rallies.

That’s not the America we grew up learning to cherish; the land of the free from a hard won charter to secure justice and a declaration stating all (humans) are created equal.

Our suspicions come from some pretty hard evidence. Yesterday in my Iowa hometown, flyers papered neighborhoods to join the Aryan Nation. Many citizens, Democrats and Republicans are appalled. Yet, when I posted this event on social media it was only Republicans who dismissed it as essentially harmless and that such things “have always been around.” That doesn’t mean those apologists are Aryan Nation supporters or racists but it underscores why Democrats are more concerned than ever before.

In my lifetime (a Baby Boomer), except for occasional audacious pageantry, racist groups stayed isolated and were met with community disgust when they paraded down Main Street (I was in Skokie when Nazis marched and I joined other members of a liberal organization I belonged to and stood in their way). We stood together to keep them on the fringe.

In the last 8 years these organizations have clearly stepped out of the shadows. They are growing and have been emboldened because they identify with anti-immigration rhetoric. Crimes against immigrants have been on the rise since “they aren’t sending their best.” That rhetoric has moved to the mainstream in the era of Donald Trump.

Being blind to that is what we are afraid of because that’s how it spreads. That’s how it’s normalized. That’s how it becomes institutionalized. And then one day we all wake up and wonder how we got to where we are. History has plenty of evidence.

So, again, our never-equaled-before outcry is not without reason. It is firmly rooted in quantifiable fear from these contradictions.

The day before the election I saw a meme that said “A vote for Trump is a vote for world peace.” The thread that followed said there were no wars under Trump. One post said it’s because Putin would never challenge Trump and Hamas would have been too afraid of his retaliation.

In this Trump directed love-fest it was said that “North Korea launched no ballistic missile tests” (untrue) and that Xi Jinping is equally afraid of Trump. Xi Jinping, for the record, has already warned the president-elect that the United States would ‘lose from confrontation’ with China in a renewed trade war.

That doesn’t sound like trepidation. Regardless, foreign policy is a game of timing as much as it is about policy or military might. If Republicans really care about peace and ending conflict then why aren’t we all looking at as much historical data as we can find? To attribute relative peace from 2016-2020 and affix blame for Ukraine and Israel-Hamas onto Biden is a shortsighted point of view.

Any view of Vladimir Putin as an ally for peace is myopic at best. Trump’s coziness with him caused us on the left to cringe. It is strange now to hear Cold War, anti-communist, Republicans, praise any alliance with Russia. Diplomatic relations, sure, but there appears to be an ideological connection between Putin and Trump. Trump has more than once expressed his admiration for lockstep compliant constituents. To deny his infatuation with authoritarianism when he says to Kim Jong-Un: “I wish my people did that” in response to a giant hall of North Koreans snapping to attention when he entered, should put a shiver down the spine of any freedom loving, Constitutionalist, American.

It didn’t on America’s right side.

Make no mistake, Vladimir Putin is not on the side of America nor any peace with America if we should stop his intentions. He has made it clear that he seeks a new world order with Russia at the top of the food chain. And his relations with China suggests he doesn’t see America as number two.

When Trump stops aid to Ukraine and Ukraine falls, what reason is there for NATO nations to feel secure? It will be a firestorm of fear and uncertainty that does not outline a path toward peace. We can debate isolationism vrs imperialism until the kalmiks come home, but to put your foreign policy eggs in the Trump basket without considering the cause and effect of his previous policy, is frightening.

The same is true in the Middle East. Following Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem in 2017 as Israel’s capital, protests in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, started burning US flags. There is no reason to believe that if Trump had won in 2020 that Hamas wouldn’t have still attacked when it did. Timing did not work in Biden’s favor.

And maybe I’m wrong. Or incomplete myself. What I’m not, however, and what millions of liberals, progressives, snowflakes, libtards, and Democrats, are not, is irrational in our criticism of the conservative mandates that we now face. It is born from the magnitude of contradictory beliefs and practices from modern conservatism that the Republican Party enveloped in order to win.

Included are draconian abortion laws you’ve made clear that you will pass. Restrictions that have, in states where they already exist, seen women die from ectopic pregnancies because doctors will not touch the risk of a legal maelstrom.

And we are concerned that safety from guns will be contradicted by erasing what few restrictions exist already.

Again, for the record, the conservative position on both of those last two issues was drastically different 50 years ago. As well as healthcare. Richard Nixon proposed something similar to ACA. Mitt Romney took the concept to Massachusetts. It wasn’t until Obama could pass it through Congress that you hated it. Is it perfect? No, it was the best compromise possible after decades of trying to get authentic universal care, but I talked to a young man just last night who wouldn’t be here today without the coverage he received due to “Obamacare.”

You’ve made it clear that you see added pronouns and trans rights as the decay of morality, and your own fear is that liberals will take America to a place you no longer recognize, and contrary to what you believe as best. I don’t agree with you but I’m not going to argue with you right now. I understand how entrenched you are in certain beliefs. I’d like to offer this- let people be who they feel themselves to be. The conflicts are only adjustments and we all rise to a better place when understanding and acceptance is our principal goal. When we, as one human race, support the autonomy of lives and defend individual freedom, the conflicts from our differences fade away.

You see, there are so many issues we have been working hard for in the interest of improving lives and we see them in dire trouble. This hasn’t been a fair debate about ideology between conservative and liberal ideals because conservatives have changed according with political expediency; many times complete about-faces.

Electing Donald Trump meant the values, the old Golden Rules we learned in school about kindness, respect, honesty and to share, are empty platitudes. And since they are, it is incumbent upon us to ask- what, then, is the true agenda of this red wave?

Is it the fruition of oligarchy where a few at the top control the decisions from the power of their wealth? In an oligarchy those decisions are to increase their wealth in order to increase their control…and it goes on. And it breeds exclusion and exclusivity.

There is a lot of evidence to indicate that’s what it is and that good people have been blinded, duped, or brainwashed, into believing oligarchs are looking out for them.

Democrats have not been perfect leaders, we don’t have a flawless plan or history. We are pretty lousy at politics. Our best politicians have been moderates who often resemble old school Republicans. At the core, however of the ideology that binds us is a belief in community, prosperity in terms of comfort and protection, but also in the free expression of who each of us are, individually. Our code (and we falter) is to not judge color, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and religion, and to uphold the most cherished values of America by securing justice, equality and opportunities without favor or unfair advantages.

Those tenets have been starkly challenged by the emergence of Donald Trump onto the landscape of Republican politics. When the controlling party is fueled by an endless wheel of changing positions and opportunistic beliefs, there is little reason to feel we are in good hands.

That’s why we are more upset than usual.

Sincerely, your friend in America,

Gary

P.S. and Christian nationalism is really scary. It contradicts the Constitution you claim to hold sacrosanct. Or is it just the 2nd Amendment that is flawless? Even though it’s the most vague…

P.S.S did Republican evangelicals thank God for Biden’s election as they have Trump’s? Or Obama’s? Or is God only evident when their party wins?

P.S.S and how can you be the party of “law and order” when you side with insurrectionists invading Congress rather than the police officers trying to protect our sacred institution and lawmakers hiding within? Or the travesty of justice that will soon prevail as people who chanted “Hang Mike Pence!” will be exonerated?

I’m piling on now, but when these non-trivial contradictions don’t end, it is maddening.