Recently, I received an unsolicited email from Mary Trump, a niece of former President Donald Trump. Unlike most unsolicited emails I receive, this one was not deleted.
Mary Trump, age 58, has known her uncle for her entire life. For many years, both lived in New York City and were in frequent, direct contact.
But in the Trump family, apparently, familiarity breeds contempt. Mary, in fact, has formed the Democracy Defense Fund to, in her own words, “save our country from the authoritarian traitors who seek to destroy it.” Specifically cited as the chief of these traitors is Uncle Donald.
Equally noteworthy are the recent comments of Donald Trump’s onetime White House chief of staff, John Kelly. According to the former Marine Corps general, Trump is “a person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person who has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law. God help us.”
Kelly was particularly incensed at Trump’s grisly attack on General Mark Milley, the newly retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in which the former president suggested that the general be executed. Milley successfully resisted Trump’s efforts to politicize the armed forces and likely prevented a coup d’etat, “a Reichstag moment,” on Jan. 6, 2021.
Said Kelly of Trump: “A person who cavalierly suggests that a selfless warrior for 40 years in peacetime and war should lose his life for treason — in expectation that someone will take action.”
Clearly, this is Trump’s modus operandi: to broadly suggest and encourage criminality — but let a crackpot do it for him.
Milley is a veteran of four tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a recipient of numerous commendations, including the Legion of Merit and the Bronze Star. There is no braver man in the country.
Yet, in his own words, this four-star general and hero has had to take “appropriate measures to ensure my safety and the safety of my family.”
How can this happen in America? It certainly has never happened before.
If one so esteemed and prominent as Milley can be threatened, furthermore, what would that bode for others in a second Trump presidency? Who else might be tarred with the epithet “traitor” and menaced with execution?
Citizens who write letters to newspapers? Editors who publish them? Subscribers who read them?
Well, why not? Trump plainly believes — and has publicly stated — that the Constitution and the courts of justice should not apply to the president. There would be only the whims and ego of the thug and tyrant.
In Putin’s Russia, journalists are hit by cars, thrown from balconies and infused with poison. In Nazi Germany, dissidents were beheaded for distributing leaflets. It can happen here.
According to Winston Churchill: “The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. With this shield, however the Fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honor.”
Donald Trump’s distance from this ideal can only be measured in light-years. If Trump regains power, this country is through.
Joseph Tipler
Centralia
