To The Reader’s Forum:

Over the past 28 years the only Republican presidential candidate to win a majority of the American public’s vote was George W. Bush in 2004. Seven presidential elections and only once did the people of our country choose a Republican. 2020 will be the eighth as even Republican leadership concedes it is virtually impossible for Donald Trump to win the popular vote this year.

After receiving 3 million fewer votes in 2016 Mr. Trump was unprepared, he had no plan to govern. The only coherent or consistent policy of Mr. Trump was undoing every action undertaken by his predecessor. Barack Obama gained almost 10 million more votes than his opponent in 2008. The policies he adopted were widely seen as favorable since he was elected again in 2012. Yet, Mr. Trump, holding a personal grudge with little experience and no policy initiatives of his own proceeded, with animus and spite, to undo what a majority of Americans voted for twice. Mr. Trump’s only significant legislative accomplishment was a tax cut that overwhelmingly benefited himself and his rich friends.

Over four years Mr. Trump and republicans have shown contempt for the American people and American democracy. Mr. Trump consistently serves only two minority constituencies; the affluent who line his pockets and the resentful poorly educated white males seeking an authority figure to return them to a mythical position of power and privilege. Unable to win a majority of the vote, except once in the past 28 years, Republicans are willing to accept Russian or other foreign interference in our elections, suppress the vote in every way possible, promote claims of voter fraud for which there is no evidence, and seem willing to even abandon the founding ideal of the American Republic by not accepting the results of a fair election should Mr. Trump fail to secure a majority of the vote, again.

A conservative Republican, David Frum, writes in his book, Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic, “If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.” Indeed, it appears they already have.

There is only one choice this November 3rd, Trump or America. Let us all be sure not to abandon 232 years of American history and heritage, as a self-serving minority have, by voting for democracy.

Tom Meara

Jamestown