MERRY?

December 15, 2017

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher,

101 Main Street #380

Huntington Beach, CA 92648

Dear Congressman,

Re: MERRY?

Your Trump has been smirking “Merry Christmas” since October—still a warrior, I presume, in Fox News’s ardent defense against the pagans’ “war on Christmas.” I feel compelled to ask, though, merry for whom? Merry for Trump, no doubt, who may get to sign an actual—though despicable—bill this coming week, and whose family stands to profit handsomely from its passage! Merry, it seems also, for Republicans, who can soon rejoice not only in their success in placating their oligarchic donors, but also in depriving millions of their fellow Americans of the security of health care insurance. They have managed in a sneaky way what they failed so very often to achieve with what Sen. McCain referred to at a moving but alas ephemeral moment as “the proper order.”

Well done, Republicans! Well done! You have flaunted the will of the majority of those you were elected to “serve”! You have sold the America you claim to love down the river of cash delivered by your bosses.

Not so merry for that majority, however—myself amongst them. We are left feeling ill-served, cheated, betrayed by our “government,” permanently angry, and clinging to the last straws of hope for the survival of our vaunted democracy. We are feeling embarrassed for a country that so readily abandons old relationships and treaties and declares to the world its callous disregard for the well-being of our planet. Not only does our “president” behave like a spoiled and truculent child in the global community, he encourages the exploitation or dismantling of all our country’s resources, whether human or natural. And, before the disbelieving world, you Republicans rally round to support him in his every rash action and delusion.

Not so merry for the rest of us in America, then, this Christmas. I wish you better judgment and a more ethical conscience in the coming year.

Not merrily, no. But sadly,

Peter Clothier, Ph.D.