From a friend, to his children and some friends

My least favorite campaign placard from the Bernie crowd is “America Was Never Great”. 

Tell that to my family members who served at Brandywine and Valley Forge and Yorktown; and in the War of 1812; and at Gettysburg; and on the Western Front; and at Pearl Harbor and the Coral Sea and Leyte Gulf; and at beachheads in Algeria, Sicily, Salerno, Anzio and Southern France; and who died in a bombing raid over the Ploesti oilfields; and over the skies of North Korea; and at Loc Ninh and who died in a fiery helicopter crash near Pleiku; and in Desert Storm.  Bernie and fellow travelers – tell them that America Was never Great.  And while you are at it remember that it was their sacrifices that gave you the freedom to say the idiotic things you are saying.

Tell that to the tens of millions of immigrants (including some of our ancestors) who came from abject poverty around the world and built strong families and a strong nation (many of whom fought and died for it because it was great).  Tell that to the millions who continue to try to come here – both legally and illegally.  Is it because America is not great – exactly the opposite is true!

I fear that sensible Democrats have capitulated to the crazies on the left – you see it everywhere.  Freedom of speech on college campuses?? Vitriol for anyone who disagrees with their orthodoxy – what ever happened to tolerance or informed debate??  Belief in post-birth abortion??  Sanctuary counties and cities which knowingly choose to violate the supremacy clause of the Constitution because they don’t like the results??  Unelected Federal judges in a single, remote district who try to impose nationwide restraining orders to block Federal government actions they don’t like??  Even members of Congress who insist that if a defendant (in this case Trump) has exculpatory evidence he must bring it forward to prove his innocence and failure to do so is evidence of guilt – only in the Napoleonic Code was guilt presumed until the accused could prove his innocence, yet many so-called “progressives” would turn the clock back on our hallowed principle of the presumption of innocence.  In a country that fought for civil rights and equality in the 1960’s what we now have is every hyphenated identity group you can conjure up: Black-Americans; LGBTQ-Americans; Women’s groups; etc.  That list is very long.  The very same people who once said we were all the same and all equal now trumpet nothing but identity politics and anyone who doesn’t buy in is branded a racist or homophobe or some other epithet.  I’m not advocating for it, but can you imagine if we had any political or social groups which were “white-American” or “male-American” or “Christian-American”?  Make no mistake . . . no such groups would be tolerated or at a minimum their members would be branded racist or something similar.

The self-professed “progressives” are increasingly driving people like me into the arms of Trump because we can’t find refuge anywhere else.  What a shame.  To our surprise, even our most left-wing friends are now saying maybe there is something to the “fake news” narrative.

I recall the manager of our Moscow office (a former Communist party official) used to say that “in the Communist era the Government pretended to pay us and we pretended to work”. That’s where the Bernie crowd would take our country.  We’ve witnessed the failures of socialism in the Soviet Union, in N. Korea, in places throughout Africa, in Venezuela and elsewhere.  Yet millions in this country think it will be great.  Yes, socialism will work just fine until they run out of someone else’s money.   Sure, let’s forgive everyone’s college debt – but what about those hard working families who saved, who put off family vacations and sacrificed so they could send their kids to college – in short who played by the rules – what do they get out of the new socialism other than looking like fools??  The left’s answer – too bad; we can’t cure all problems.

To quote Yates,

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre  

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere  

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst  

Are full of passionate intensity.”

I think the damage of the Trump presidency is not the long-term effects of his policies; it is that Trump Derangement Syndrome has driven a large part of the country mad – and that is what may destroy the country - not Donald Trump.

My only hope is that somehow the center will hold.