The Trump Threat
Assuming she receives the nomination, I will vote for Hillary Clinton in November. I am not a fan. She, like many other politicians, is a businessperson posing as a public servant. She is dishonest and self-serving. She voices her care for human rights and dignity mostly because it promotes her own desire for attention and influence.
My vote for Hillary has little to do with her values. I will vote for Hillary Clinton because of two words: Donald Trump. Like Clinton, Trump is a self-serving and dishonest person. But there is a critical difference between the two. When Trump lies and is called out on his fabrications, he attacks his detractors, calling them names. So far it’s dummy, phony, crooked, goofy, etc. Next will come treasonous, traitorous and disloyal. This is the birthplace of totalitarianism. In the classic make-up of all dictators, Donald Trump is a thin-skinned narcissist who attacks and destroys perceived threats to his image and power. To this juncture, it’s with words and through the machinations of big business. As president, who knows what lengths he would go to in order to silence and crush those who oppose him?
You may believe that my words reek of hyperbole, but history is replete with examples of democratic states descending into the mire of autocracy. The United States is not immune. If you are a true patriot, then you must vote for Hillary Clinton. This is no longer an election about ideology. This is no longer an election about the Supreme Court or about foreign policy or about the economy. This is an election about the survival of the Republic.
Dan Weintraub
Quechee
The Way That Facism Comes
Thank you for running The Washington Post essay, “This is the Way Fascism Comes to America” (Perspectives, May 29). It should be read by every American who believes in maintaining our democratic way of life.
I was 6 years old when World War II began. I remember well the way our country rallied to preserve democracy. I saw the weekly newsreels and listened with my parents to the nightly radio broadcasts from London or the warfront. I was taken to the local police station to be fingerprinted “just in case . . . ”
Since then I have read several books about life under the Nazis. I, too, have seen the similarities between Donald Trump and Hitler. The stern countenance, the hatred of those who are not like “us Americans,” the “heil Hitler” salute, the violence against anyone who does not follow Trump’s thinking. Is his foul language what we want to hear coming from the mouth of a president of the United States? What does he really believe in other than his own power?
I shudder to think what Donald Trump’s presidency would bring not only to the United States, but to the rest of the world. I tell my Republican friends that to refrain from voting is a vote for Donald Trump. I ask them to put aside politics, and to exercise their right to vote against Trump by voting (in their minds) for the lesser of two evils.
Grace Pipes
Lebanon