By Vernon A. Williams, Gary Crusader
This is an open letter to 2016 GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump:
Okay, Donald. Enough is enough.
Yeah, it was funny in the beginning. The bombastic matching orange hair and face paying folks fifty bucks apiece to cheer your announcement to run for president, the funny faces and derisive nicknames for your Republican opponents. But lately the jokes have gone too far.
It was like watching a train wreck, hearing you talk about women like a person raised in a motherless environment without sisters, aunts, nieces or female cousins – like a person who had no daughters of his own.
How else could you call a woman “pig,” rate them on a scale of 1-10, suggest a debate journalist is experiencing her menstrual cycle because of unfavorable questions, attack an opponent’s wife who you thought less attractive than yours, call a female political foe “Pocahontas,” and suggest that women who get abortions should be criminally prosecuted. Really, Donald?
We knew you were “out there” when you dogged President Obama about his birth certificate – one of the ugliest challenges to any Chief Executive in U.S. history; then adding injury to insult – insisted he was a card-carrying socialist and Muslim.
Speaking of Islam, your outrageous rants against an entire religion are both unprecedented and un-American. It’s an embarrassment to the world.
You compromise the dignity of the presidential election process with this incessant bickering with the parents of a Muslim soldier who gave his life for this country while neither you nor any of your children were ever even in the military. Your level of religious bigotry would make some Nazis blush.
So no one was surprised when you accused Mexican immigrants of being largely comprised of murderers and rapists. No one was surprised when you suggested mass deportations and construction of a wall between U.S. borders and Mexico. No one was surprised when you accused an Indiana-native judge of being incapable of handling your case fairly because of his Mexican heritage.
Though roundly condemned, Republicans continued to embrace your candidacy.
Your assertion that Black Americans love you is a contemptible lie given your claim to know nothing about White Supremacy and your refusal to renounce such endorsements. Though at a rally you embarrassingly pointed to a man calling him: “my African American,” with zero percent Black support in Ohio and Pennsylvania, the “love” you claim to see is just a mirage.
Look, Donald. It’s becoming clear that you were never interested in being president. Who could reasonably expect you to report to the same office every day, respond to unending inquiries, ferret through volumes of complex materials regularly, and submit to scheduling that requires you to interact with so many, with whom you have so little in common, on such a regular basis.
Air Force One is a step down for a man with his own private airliner and helicopter. The White House can’t claim the gaudy amenities of the Trump Towers penthouse.
And how could a man accustomed to going where he pleases, when he pleases, with whomever he pleases submit to a routine protocol. It would be similar to trying to raise a grizzly as a house pet.
In your defense, Donald, I don’t think you intended to take it this far. After all, how could you possibly calculate that some 17 opponents would cower away from your abrasive confrontations? Who could have foreseen every cable network suspending journalistic responsibility to convert into TRUMP TV?
This is a phenomenon no one could forecast. No one could have predicted that so many Americans – largely angry, uneducated white men – would come out in such intensity to reinforce your insanity? And who knew that the more outrageous your insults and affronts to civility – the larger your loud, ludicrous, loyal legions would loom?
Your campaign needs to stop right here – right now. You’re scaring the children and turning neighbors against neighbors. Friendships have been dulled as a result of your proposed policies and in every corner of the country, confrontation mounts. You have made existing chasms even more deeply divided. Your campaign brought out the worst in us.
What you should do is simply schedule one final press conference to call it quits; to salvage some fragment of dignity. Just explain that you never meant for it to go this far, that you’ve got to put an end to this farce, that the fate of the nation outweighs any one man’s agenda.
Conclude in a whisper: “Trump…out,” then drop the mike and walk off. That single act on your part would truly help to make America great again!
CIRCLE CITY CONNECTION by Vernon A. Williams is a series of essays on myriad topics that include social issues, human interest, entertainment and profiles of difference makers who are forging change in a constantly evolving society. Williams is a 40-year veteran journalist based in Indianapolis, IN – commonly referred to as The Circle City. Send comments or questions to: [email protected].
