Sep 10, 2016 6 min read

The pre-election essay which an honorable Washington County Republican Party has a duty to provide to all its members:

“Friends,

Those of you who have followed our organization know that we strive to recommend voting for good members of our Grand Old Party, with the hope and expectation that they will honor the traditional tenets of the party: limited government; minimizing taxation; and preserving our nation as a beacon of freedom and opportunity for all. This year’s presidential election is the most important of our lifetime, one to which we must give great thought and deliberation.

It is with the deepest regret that we must do something which is unprecedented in our history: announce that we cannot provide our imprimatur to the party’s nominee, Donald Trump.

First, we would note Trump is not a Republican or a conservative. It is hard to determine what his ideology is: whether it is what he says today, what he said yesterday, or what he will say tomorrow. We know that he has a history of liberal activism and contributions to Democrats. He purports to be a supporter of Planned Parenthood. He savaged Republican President George W. Bush for “lying us into war” in Iraq. His positions change with the wind and he regards fact as mere opinion.

Trump bemoans the $19 trillion national debt as we do, but his plans would vastly increase it. It is not possible to beef up the military, make no changes to crumbling entitlements, and provide massive tax cuts skewed to people like Trump without an unprecedented increase in our red ink. His anti-trade posture and threats, which could provoke trade wars, would bring about job loss and a negative jolt to the economy.

Trump became notorious for his consistent, bellicose call which kicked off his campaign: to round up all 11 million or more undocumented immigrants and deport them, even if this meant ejecting those who have lived here for years and breaking up families. This secured him the support of those who believed Trump when he said that Mexico is sending us its “drug dealers, criminals, and rapists”. Now, recognizing how offensive and impossible his original proposal was to implement, he is moderating his position to hew close to that of President Obama: to seek to deport undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes which extend beyond the unlawful entry into our country.

Trump was the founder of the offensive and racist “Birther” movement, which sought a way to deny the presidency to a man he despised. Even in the face of President Obama having presented his birth certificate, Trump has not apologized.

Our party’s nominee has attempted to “insult his way to the presidency” as the honorable Jeb Bush said during the primary election. He has denigrated African-Americans, Muslims, women, and war heroes like John McCain, serving to minimize and tarnish his valorous service. He engaged in battle the parents of a Muslim man who gave his life for our country, outrageously suggesting that only the father of the slain soldier spoke at the Democratic National Convention because the couple’s faith did not allow the mother to make a statement. When someone challenges Trump, they have engaged a battle royale, the thin-skinned nominee striking back with rhetorical fervor. The coarse and crude manner in which Trump speaks causes one to have to guard against their children watching him on television lest they believe that vulgarity and talk about one’s sexual prowess is accepted.

Trump proposes to enact a religious test to keep Muslims out of the country, having ludicrously asserted that all of Islam is at war with us. How, precisely, would this work, and what would such a test do to our reputation throughout the civilized world?

Trump has made absurd pronouncements, promising that all crime and violence will end when he is president and that store clerks will again say “Merry Christmas.” Can he truly believe statements that are so absurd and insulting to the intelligent voter?

The candidate made a clear reference to assassinating his opponent if she were elected, suggesting that “The Second Amendment people” might be able to do something to preclude a President Hillary Clinton from selecting Supreme Court justices. With this and other outrageous statements he has made, he backs down, at least a bit, when called on it, falsely asserting that he was joking or being sarcastic.

Trump rallies provide attendees the opportunity to express in the most vile terms their hatred and contempt for Hillary Clinton, immigrants, and others, and have seen an inordinate amount of violence which was stimulated by the candidate, who has expressed a fondness for the era in which those who caused trouble would be “carried out on a stretcher.”

He claimed that the primary election system was rigged against him … until he won the nomination. Now, also in advance and with nothing to back it up, he levels the same charge vis-a-vis the general election, an assertion which would no doubt vanish into thin air if the people were sufficiently misguided as to elect him.

Prominent military leaders and those who have served in other capacities in Republican administrations have banded together to note what a danger and a calamity it would be to have someone of Trump’s ilk in the Oval Office. No less than GOP grand dame Barbara Bush has stated that she does not understand how any woman could vote for Donald Trump. Our allies are fearful of the possibility of a Trump presidency as well.

What about the Supreme Court, you might ask? How can we entrust the selection of justices to Hillary Clinton? We would first ask whether anyone who has heard the lies and distortions of Trump feels that his pledge to appoint conservative jurists can be relied upon.

Furthermore, if a man who is unable to accept criticism should get us into the final war, Supreme Court selections will be irrelevant. Do we want to turn over the nuclear codes to someone who responds with fury and threats to the slightest criticism or disagreement, including his suggestion that libel laws should be given more teeth so that he could criminally charge media organizations he deems to be unfriendly to him?

Republican leaders, including Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have sold out, endorsing Trump and putting the country last, setting aside patriotism simply because Trump has an ‘R’ after his name. We, as the representatives of a community of refined, civilized individuals of goodwill and good heart, cannot join Ryan and McConnell in abandoning our principles and our decency.

We have only scratched the surface of illuminating the myriad flaws of an outrageous man who is not suited to the presidency and must not be elected.

We leave it to you as to whether to vote for Hillary Clinton, a third-party candidate, or no one, but please demonstrate your patriotism and conscience by withholding your vote from the absolutely unqualified man who seeks to become the leader of the free world.”

Oren Spiegler is a resident of Upper St. Clair Township.