A few days after the inauguration, NBC News interviewed several people about their expectations. Some were Democrats; some were Republicans. One, a Republican businessperson from Florida, made a statement that resonated with me and I cannot get it out of my mind. To paraphrase him, he stated that his main issue was that Democrats seemed to be lumping all Republicans into the terrorists that invaded the United States Capital and that this seemed unfair. While I will never be able to respond to him directly and will probably not be able to respond to any like-minded person either because people have blocked out input from those they disagree with, I felt compelled to write an open letter anyway. For what reason, I do not know. Probably self-serving in some way. Nonetheless, here goes:
Dear Sir,
No, I do not think that you, as a Republican, automatically are a member of the terrorists who attacked the United States Capital nor do I think that you are among those who support them. Nor do I think that you, as a Republican, are a White Supremist, member of the KKK, skinhead, racist, misogynist, xenophobe, or a combination of the above. Any more than you can claim that I, as a Democrat, support Communists, Socialists, Antifa, or some other left-wing terror group. While all of the ones I describe are loosely associated to the Democrat or Republican affiliations, they do not represent the mainstream and I, along with the majority of decent people, know this.
However, here is the problem that you are encountering from people like me. I cannot really take your cries of innocence totally and I cannot forgive you the actions of those terrorist totally. Why? You were willing to embrace an individual who did not eschew these terrible people; in fact, he incited them. You did this for the benefit of furthering your political agenda. At the expense of the very country.
You, the average Republican, are not an unintelligent person. You knew he was a liar and self-serving narcissist; to the detriment of the country. You knew he was not even doing his job of running the country in order to further his personal agenda. Yet you stood by. Not only stood by, but also actively and in large numbers tried to re-elect him to further pollute the country to further your political agenda and to hell with what he personally was doing.
If that were not enough, you stood by and did not speak out as one when he lied about the election results. You know better. Nevertheless, you did nothing. In addition, this was reinforced to the elected Republicans who were in the House and Senate who were afraid to cross you. They were willing, under oath, to continue this fallacy of election victory. Do you not wonder that the crazies on the edge of your political point-of-view would storm the United States Capital? I do not.
So, while I know that you are not part of the radical crazies, your willingness to support him for your personal selfish reasons over the benefit of the country means you are a major part of the problem. You are almost as much to blame as the ones carrying the Confederate Battle Flag in the United States Capital and I find that hard to forgive or reconcile.
Sincerely,
Robert G. Boynton
