Dear Editor:
As a former long-time republican, I am hoping that my Republican friends may help me understand the drastic changes in the leadership of the party of today. What was once the Grand Old Party and has become something far different from the Reagan/Bush era.
It appears to have become a cult of personality wherein policy is not America First or even second. Instead, it is Trump first. Before character mattered, we put God and country before party. As elected officials we knew our role was to serve the people. We believed in sound fiscal policy instead of tariffs that will only drive-up inflation. What happened to honesty, decency, respect for our institutions and each other? We knew what conservatism was and who Edmund Burke, Wiliam F. Buckly, Charles Krauthammer and Russel Kurt were. We believed that no man was above the law. We sought competence over chaos.
We honored our military service and never referred to those guarding our country as “loses and suckers”. We didn’t need a demigod that is referred to as the “Yellow Jesus” today by many of the Republicans in our Congress. Reagan in his farewell address spoke of the need for immigrants to come to our country to improve our economy and our culture and become part of the melting pot that has always been the United States of America (E pluribus unum). What happened to being the beacon of democracy? He complains about migrants at our southern border but worked to kill the needed conservative legislative initiative supported by our border guards to fix the problems.
The leader of your party has referred to immigrants as vermin and wants to unnaturalize and deport United States citizens from countries that he does not approve of. He has announced that he interfered with a free and fair election and that he should be able to do so. In a speech in Las Vegas this summer he stated, “I don’t care about you, I just want your votes.” He has declared that he will be a “dictator on day one” , if he wins the current election. For years he has lied about the outcome of the 2020 election and only recently said that he actually “lost by a whisker”, yet he continues to openly lies about the outcome. He does not want to defend democracy in our world order (Ukraine). Your leader has been diagnosed as a malignant narcissist sociopath and in his speeches has become increasingly angry, rambling and often not making sense as he increases in age.
He now calls for the jailing of those that oppose his views by our military. He has declared that he will be a dictator on day one, if elected again and that he will terminate our constitution to stay in power. He has already become a multiple convicted felon and still faces charges of violating the Espionage Act, lying to investigators, obstructing justice and racketeering. The Republican leader of the Senate intelligence Committee stated, “Trump posed a grave counterintelligence threat to or country.” In an editorial in the Economist, they stated that “Trump is the greatest threat to the world and not just the United States”.” His former Chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff, General Milley, has called him “a fascist to the core” and referring to Trump “ “He is now the most dangerous person to this Country”. Do we really want to remove the guardrails of Madisonian democracy?
Please help me try to understand these things and so much more regarding your party today. Let us have an open dialog.
Dennis Luttrell
Divide
*Dennis Luttrell served as a Teller County commissioner, for District 2, throughout much of the 1980s as a member of the local GOP Party. He actually ran for this seat again two years ago as the Teller County Democratic Party nominee.
