Dear editor:
The 47th President of the United States has become the 1st Dictator of the United States.
Count the ways:
- He has, without the consent of the elected officials of the cities or states involved, sent armed troops into U.S. cities, plus masked agents seizing people on the streets.
- He has authorized U.S. agencies to enforce federal law, on immigration, with cruelty, sending adults and children into detention camps here and abroad
- He has exploited his position and the credit and wealth of the nation to gain direct payments to himself and his family via cryptocurrency companies, charges for access to him, and “gifts” from countries seeking U.S. support
- He has threatened and intimidated major law firms, universities, and individuals with whose policies he does not agree. He has done so personally, or indirectly through agencies of the U.S. government, violating the free speech protections of our Constitution
There are many more outrages to charge against him. Overall, he is looting the country for the gain of himself and his family. Cruelty and greed mark his administration, and there is no telling how far that cruelty and greed will reach.
This man’s latest self-indulgence only spotlights the shallowness of his understanding of what has made this country “great”. Last week, he announced plans to sell to foreigners who can pay $1 million apiece a “gold card” (with his picture on it) to become residents here.
Why, for over 200 years, have people flocked to our shores, suffered hardships of all kinds, and offered the best of themselves to build the country, to create the wealth he now exploits?
Because the government we all have built together, which he now destroys, offers the chance to follow dreams, to seek truth and speak what you see, to live your best life.
A chance for a full life. People seek it as best they can. Not the millionaires, but those who maybe huddle in one-room city apartments, work for low wages, eat a bare minimum, and hope for a better life. They dream and create… songs, families, stories, new technology, and new cultures. They make America alive.
Trump prefers to make a lonely fortress of a country, with a population increasingly sullen and led to fear each other as well as their government.
No doubt a few foreign millionaires will come to settle there after paying Trump’s price, in the belief that money will shield them, and him. Meanwhile the rest of the world will swirl noisily on, and people will keep seeking hope, somewhere else.
Let’s not live in Trump’s desolate fortress.
Now is the time for every congressperson and senator (yes, including our Wyoming delegation) to refuse to fund the dictator’s government any further, and to declare what he is.
Stand up for a government shutdown on October 1. It will be messy but we must declare an end to this. We can find a way ahead and truly get our government and our country back.
Sincerely,
Anne MacKinnon, Casper
