Thank You, Mr. Trump

WOKE UP TODAY in Europe to read about a "new, more presidential" Donald Trump speaking at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.  The news cycle had put a pretty positive spin on what he said.  It carried across the seas. 

Then I read the speech.  Fear and loathing.  Nixonian in a way that Spiro Agnew would appreciate.  We remember Spiro, the vice-president and later-to-be-indicted Maryland governor.  He was Nixon's attack dog and "law and order" advocate.  He pleaded no contest to bribery charges, and resigned as VP in 1973.  A year later, Nixon resigned the presidency under threat of impeachment for covering up crimes his office directed against opponents.

Back then, the main foes of law-and-order were Democrats against Nixon and anti-war demonstrators on streets and on campuses protesting the Vietnam war.  Today the enemies are terrorists supposedly hiding in all 50 US states, gays and lesbians who want to marry, believers who aren't Christians, immigrants who seek to live in America, and everyone like Hillary who disagrees or challenges him.  

Against these and other threats, Trump & Co. have fashioned a constituency that includes love-your-neighbor evangelicals and law-and-order lovers like Trevor Lees from the Ohio Minutemen, a self-described "constitutional militia" on display in Cleveland.  The state's "open carry" law allows anyone to walk around in public with their weapons in full view, even attack rifles.  How comforting to know that Trevor has my back.

I thank Mr. Trump for seeking the best -- or is it beast -- in America as he seeks to make the country great again.  Many people feel empowered to do and say in public what they have thought and felt in silence for years.  Trump said he is their "voice", and they cheer him for headlining their views.  More than a few see the hand of God in all of this.  Part of the Plan.

I see good people of faith and charity going off the deep end.  Stoked by a voice of fear and hate-your-neighbors that sure can't be God's. 

“I’ve heard this sort of speech a lot in the last 15 years,” said Vladimir Putin critic and chess grandmaster Gary Kasparov about Trump's dark words. "Trust me, it doesn’t sound any better in Russian."

Supporters see Mr. Trump march into the White House and on day one unwind everything he has vowed to do:  build the wall, clean up crime, change the Supreme Court, ban Muslims, manufacture jobs for all, and move to put Hillary in jail.

Day two will show how far fearmongering flies.