From: John Vanderbur
Greensburg
I write this letter in response to a recent letter titled “Trump election win not really a mystery,” written by Sherry Grimes and published in The Republic.
As I read this letter, I underlined those segments that I disagreed with. When I was done, I had about 75 percent of the text underlined. Being confined to 500 words, I will refute what I feel are important contentions.
I believe she mentioned the “silent majority” four times. In the November election, the so-called “silent majority” were actually those who voted for Hillary Clinton. She beat him in the popular vote by 2.5 million votes. The “silent majority” was a catch phrase used by President Nixon, and we all know how that presidency ended.
In the following, I will put in quotation marks the verbatim comments from Grimes’ letter, and then I will give a rebuttal of those remarks. (1) “The silent majority knows that it is unconstitutional to force Americans to buy any product, even Obamacare, against their will.” *Better think again, the Supreme Court ruled that Obamacare is legal. The conservative Justice Roberts was the swing vote in that case. (2) “The silent majority is sick and tired of being called racist, homophobic, sexist and anti-immigrant.” *Well, you need only to listen to the racist remarks (Mexicans), sexist comments (some women are fat pigs) and the immigration remarks made by none other than Donald Trump. (3) “We want our First Amendment rights back.” *No one has taken them from you. You have freedom of speech and you may express yourself within the confines of civility and law.
In addition to these, Grimes had a bullet list of five items. She prefaced the bullet list with this remark: “Here are some of the outrageous remarks I have heard from the anti-Trump faction since Nov. 8.” The following are some of the bullet list items:
• “People will die when Obamacare is repealed.” *Prior to Obamacare, some people who had pre-existing conditions could not be insured. As a result, those in the lower and middle levels of income could not afford the medicines that they needed to survive; in short, some of them died. I have no idea how many, but if it was just one, that’s one too many.
• “All illegal immigrants will be sent back to their native countries.” *Again, Trump’s words. Several months before the election, Chuck Todd interviewed Trump. On the subject of immigration, Trump said the following: “We’re going to keep the families together, but they have to go.” When pressed on what he would do if the immigrants in question had nowhere to return to, Trump reiterated, “They have to go.”
I find Ms. Grimes letter as preaching the gospel of untruth, exaggerations and a perpetuation of mistrust and division.
As President Obama once said in a speech: “Well, I say to them tonight, there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America; there’s the United States of America.” I wish that were true.
