TAT readers,
Today’s essay was deeply painful to write, simply because this will impact so many people in my life, tragically brainwashed by Trumpism, the MAGA-era GOP and Russian influence operations. Still, what I have to say here must be said “out loud,” and before our November 3rd midterms. I take no pleasure in what follows, other than the knowledge that I am expressing painful truths that I believe most readers will share. As background, I have written a handful of open letters over the past couple of years, which have led up to this critical moment. For those with interest, they are linked below and preceded today’s letter, though are not required for understanding today’s work.
An open letter to everyone's friends and family that voted for Trump... again
A second open letter to Trump voters. They won't like this one either
For those who’ve seen these essays before or read them now, I exercised all due caution for the feelings of all Americans as I penned them. Still, the old saying, “that truth hurts” is evident in the content of each. Trump, his party and their oligarchy have put America on the brink of losing our status as a constitutional republic, and this supersedes the feelings of those who to this day, willfully believe in a completely alternative and un-American reality. Like the previous letters and in fact in all of my work, the intent is not to hurt or take revenge on modern republicans but to tell the truth. This letter follows my previous intentions.
Thank you as always for following, reading and when possible, acting on the truth provided. If I haven’t said it enough, please accept my apologies for not articulating more often, just how humbly grateful I am for your readership.
Dear Republicans,
Although I’m painfully sorry that it has come to this, unless you are willing to stand up and be counted in the opposition to the adminstration and their party. you are guilty of putting our republic at risk of collapse, especially if you voted consistently for what the GOP has become in the past decade. You are also on the verge of ostracizing family, lifelong friends and all honest Americans. MAGA is now synonymous with being an active Republican. They nor you are “conservative,” but are supporting full-blown extreme right-wing violent extremism. I don’t make this claim casually, as that I spent most of my army career in counterterrorism, including deep experience with radicalization. Some of you will never recover from your brainwashing.
In simple language, this open letter is about whether or not I can ever trust you again. We may exchange polite and even warm greetings, talk about old times, or maybe even sports or some other innocuous topic, than what has occurred due to your moral negligence over the past decade. At the moment though, trust is very likely, a bridge too far. You have been willfully gullible and now we all pay the price, including you. It’s the first time you have noticed what your brainwashed votes have done to the rest of us. It seemed that you didn’t care a lick when it only happened to people outside of your MAGA cult.
You imposed these shackles onto our relationships, not me or any other honest American who clearly sees what you and your votes have wrought. We have been holding back a full-broadside of “I told you so’s” for the entire decade, and you haven’t even bothered to be grateful that we were patient and tolerant at family gatherings, work or community events. In any other aspect of your life, you seek the input of experienced professionals whether it’s your family doctor, car mechanic, farm journal, lawyer etc. Sadly when it comes to understanding our national reality, you forgo any credible expertise from economists, lawyers, national security experts or the handful of news outlets that still have the courage to write the truth. No, FOX News and their ilk are not on that list and are in fact, the precise opposite.
You just kept repeating and often aggressively, that you “did your research” and that we were crazy or were suffering from that infamous and childish insult, TDS. We mostly shrugged and hoped that you’d snap out of it. My professional expertise told me that you wouldn’t or couldn’t, but as a lifelong optimist and with love and care in my heart for you, I continue to hope. Now you are suffering along with the rest of us from the unconstitutional, un-American and morally bankrupt decisions that your dear leader and his spineless Republican Party have imposed onto all of us, and the rest of the world. Why didn’t our suffering and truth not sway you until you suffered along with us? We even told you that this day would come, but you laughed and called us names only fit for a playground. Only you can and should answer this question to yourselves. I no longer care what that answer is. This is because like the overwhelming majority of Americans, I have known the answer for a decade or more. Your actions for over a decade, prove that you just don’t give a damn unless it impacts you personally.
As hurt, angry and frustrated as we are with you, the midterms are the breaking point. No, please don’t tell us that “it’s just politics.” It hasn’t been politics since you started your “birther bs” regarding President Obama’s birth certificate. In my profession it’s a well known fact that once you influence someone to believe in one conspiracy theory, every one that follows is easier to swallow, much like your idiotic culture wars and conspiracy theories. You are no longer even in control of your own mind and devoid of critical thinking. Any word, phrase, graphic or music associated with your precious MAGA identity will trigger you, just as the professional influencers who turned you into zombies intended. You respond to lies and conspiracy theories as if they are your favorite meal, hungrily devouring them as if it was your last. Now that a pound of ground beef costs more than the indecent minimum wage, you realize that just maybe, you should have listened. You didn’t and probably won’t now either. The rest of you are moving on without you.
Instead of blaming those who did this to all of us, you turned your blame towards those you pejoratively call democrats, “libtards,” heathens or my personal favorites, socialists and “radical leftists.” I seriously doubt that any of you can define any of these terms other than Democrat and that may even be a struggle. Your hate wasn’t just confined to honest Americans though, you binged on hate of “the others.” The others were simply who your cowardly Republican officials and representatives said they were; the poor, homeless, disabled, people of color or those from other countries that you have zero experience with, which includes ignoring the fact that they are human beings too. You latched onto the term DEI like it was gold and refused to stand up for anyone who wasn’t a White Christian Nationalist. This is not speculation. Your actions and inactions, are proof positive.
And then there’s your beliefs in aberrant religious beliefs like Christian Nationalism. Most of you even scoff at the term Christian Nationalism which is in fact, White Christian Nationalism. Every major church in the country has defined and warned Christians about Christian Nationalism. It’s not just the Christian Nationalists either. there are scattering of misguided Jews, Hindus, Muslims and a wide variety of other religious beliefs that also have been conned into believing the MAGA ideology of hate for others. You folks didn’t stop at religion for your hate either. Your poured your ideology into being “anti-DEI,” a code phrase for hating anyone that doesn’t look like, think like or worship as you do. Like my father, I have studied and been exposed to a very wide array of religious beliefs in my life, personally and professionally. I cannot recall a single one that didn’t have its radical fringe, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of them are adherents to very same human principles of nearly every religion.
Like your hate of “others” your fake-patriotism is written all over your support for your violent extremist party. These two issues I am certain will anger most of you. Here’s the ugly truth, so long as you support your party’s ideology, synonymous with the GOP’s Project 2025 platform, you are supporting Christian Nationalism and fake patriotic principles. No matter how you twist it, America was not founded as a Christian nation and your support for the GOP clearly demonstrates that you do not believe, “every man is created equal.” I learned at very young age that people are what they do, not what they say. Your support of far-right extremism nullifies both your religious and patriotic claims. Hell, anyone who has read non-revisionist history, a specialty of the GOP, will tell you the same thing I write here. Although I have very rarely heard my Republican family, friends and colleagues express hateful racism and bigotry first-hand, their actions supporting MAGA, tell a completely different story. Again, we are “what we do, not what we say.”
How is it that you have been listening and repeating an unending stream of lies and conspiracy theories for over a decade, and all of a sudden you are shocked that the White House, enabled by your local congressmen and senators, doesn’t give a damn about you? They have been showing you and all of us for over a decade, that their abuse of working Americans is who they are. You had the same opportunity as the rest of us to actually “do your research.” Instead, you fill your family rooms and phones with nothing but FOX, Newsmax, OAN and far worse. The GOP and their oligarchs have used you for their bottom-line, never once caring about yours. I’m not saying to switch to so-called, “liberal media” but there are plenty of great sources for the public that do a fine job of presenting truth. You have refused to even consider those sources. I know because I have taught them, wrote about them and use them every single time I write one of these essays. If I can find real facts, knowledge and wisdom, you can to… if you actually tried. You haven’t.
Now, billionaires and oligarchs are robbing you and me, every single day and they are all part of the administration’s plan. Congressmen bow down to these Robber Barons so that they will fund their campaign and what do you do, you still vote for these treasonous and corrupt liars. Take a good look in the mirror and point your accusatory finger right at back at yourself. Why did you take the rest of us down with you? This is another question that you will have to work through for the rest of your lives. You ignored and injured trusted relationships just so you could proudly put an R next to your name while worshipping your “golden calf,” a.k.a. Trump. You are not conservatives and should you doubt it, look it up in any decent dictionary or encyclopedia.
Conservatism isn’t murdering US citizens and others in our streets, the GOP is with your tacit approval. Ignoring our constitutional rights of Habeas Corpus, the right to free speech, the right to assemble and seek redress from our government, the right to separation of church and state, the right to a free press, the right to be free from search and seizure without a judicial warrant was your doing, not ours. Ignoring our constitution and celebrating the denial of all of our constitutional rights, denies all of you the right to claim that you’re patriots. Just because you don’t care about losing your constitutionally guaranteed rights, doesn’t give you the right to strip the rest of us of ours with your vote.
Yes, I and the rest of what you call “the resistance” are furious, and your stubborn, misinformed stubborn behavior is the reason. Thankfully, another trait that my father and mother taught me, was to give people the benefit of the doubt regarding their actions. I and the rest of the resistance have given you so many chances in the past decade that it would take AI to calculate them all. Why do you do this to the rest of America? You wouldn’t tolerate it from us, nor should you. For all of your bible-thumping Christian Nationalism, you sure have forgotten the passages in Luke and Matthew that says, “do unto others.” On November 3rd, that grace is over for me, and with very few exceptions. Either get in the game and fight back with honest Americans, or deal with the shame you’ll wear for the rest of your lives.
In family tradition, I will offer one final redemption option to all. No one is demanding that you admit to your abuse of your fellow Americans. All we ask is that you stand up and loudly be counted along with the rest of us attempting to rescue our republic from corrupt and selfish traitors and criminals. If you can rediscover your moral spine, that will be enough for me to reevaluate our relationships. Hopefully you care about those relationships as much as I do, but it’s on you to decide whether to extend your hand, or not. No one wishes to go through life bitter and resentful of those we love and care about, but all relationships that survive, demand that all sides make a courageous effort. Your contributions to such an effort, has been on hiatus for over a decade. If you can do that, then together we can fix our laws so that this will never happen again. There’s plenty of blame to go around but there’s also plenty of opportunity as well, if you can rejoin reality and help us. Your window of opportunity to reach out and regain reality is short with our midterms in but 17 days.
The one thing we should be able to agree on, is that our system is broken. The constitution is our North Star, and we cannot follow it so long as money buys court decisions that overrule it. First things first and that is to remove those in political office without a conscience or a moral spine. These days, the majority of those to be removed are Republicans because every single one of them enabled this administration, but there are others too on the other side of the aisle. The only people that should serve should have the moral courage of our founders, who put their lives on the line to birth our republic. It’s a simple decision for all Americans wishing to call themselves patriots, either get with our constitutional program, or go the way of the Benedict Arnolds, Aaron Burr and the Confederates who seceded from the Union.
The choice is yours and there’s only 18 days left to make it.
Sincerely,
Paul
My fellow citizens, I hope that this open letter or at least parts of it resonate with you. Please feel free to use this fully or in parts in any way you see fit. Sometimes hard truths are easier to share when someone else pens the words. I have had to write several drafts in order to trim some of the more overtly harsh feelings. Most of us are not only fed up but furious as well. That fury though will not help us to rebuild our republic, post MAGA. That rebuilding will become more crucial as time goes on due to the mountain of threats we’ve incurred as a nation, because of Trump, the MAGA GOP and oligarchy.
America suffered from a failed effort to reintegrate the Confederacy after the Civil War and that failure, during Reconstruction only served to become the foundation of the what we see in today’s GOP. It’s as if we are haunted by the same ghosts. The ideology of the old South is little different to today’s Republican Project 2025 in that it supported oligarchy, White Christian Nationalism autocracy and political violence. The Trump/ MAGA GOP era has been very much another civil war with the same ideology. It’s not enough to win. We must heal as well. We also must seek justice post MAGA, not revenge on our MAGA family, friends and neighbors. In some cases this will require enormous restraint, but I am firm in my beliefs that justice and accountability rather than vengeance, are the right path. I will return to this topic in future essays.
Step one for us though… is to dominate the midterms, defeat any and all election interference and seat a congress that restores ethics and effectively enables full-accountability of the GOP and billionaire perpetrators of this era. Again, more to follow in future essays. For today, let’s simply let the Republicans in our lives know, that we refuse to take one more step in their immoral alternative universe.
My warmest and most sincere regards for your weekend,
Paul
Viva la Libertad