President Trump continues to amaze.
Only recently he has courted North Korea, played footsie with Russia and blessed China while cursing our neighbors and threatening the Europeans who were once our loyal allies.
Churchill and DeGaulle must be writhing in their graves; and from Red Square comes Putin’s knowing smirk as Lenin’s tomb emits a fresh glow. From another square, Tiananmen, a canny shrug from the sophisticated Xi Jinping.
Almost daily Trump proposes new cuts in programs for the aged, the poor, the sick and helpless. They must sacrifice for the common good, he says.
Almost daily, he imposes new tariffs to ignite indignation and retaliation from our former, free-trading partners. Canada, Europe and Japan are to be sanctioned. The tariffs will make us independent and save jobs, Trump says.
Almost every day, he seeks to strong-arm Congress into providing more billions to expand our nuclear weaponry and to prop up friendly despots in the Middle East and Central America; and he insists on further commitments to a war in the Middle East we cannot win. This is necessary to keep our homegrown freedoms intact.
Only recently, he ordered the separation – kidnapping – of children from migrant parents and relatives who had come for asylum to the United States; the children have been deported inland to concentration camps scattered over several states, Kansas among those known. Then he changed course: families are to be jailed together. Relatives and children yanked from each other are to be reunited. Where they are, and how they are to be reunited, no one knows. This turmoil is necessary for national security, he insists.
Moreover, he recruited the hapless Homeland Security Secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, to the same hard-nosed line, jail the helpless, prey on the poor and pass the ammunition.
Have these people lost contact with reality? Have they no sense of decency? Have they given up all fealty to the Constitution? Are they suffering from the death wish?
Two former governors, Bob Bennett and Sam Brownback once boasted that Kansas was the foremost Republican state in the nation. Was that good?
First because of Nixon and Agnew and now because of Trump, Republican has become a dirty word.
How sad it is for the grand old party to fall into such disrepute, the tout of the warmongers and baby snatchers, sugar daddy to friendly despots, cold eye to the freedom seekers, despoiler of the aged and poor.
It is bad enough that Republican has become a national curse. Is America now a global profanity?
