Letter to the Editor Dec. 18, 2023

 This is the text of a letter I sent to the local newspaper on December 18, 2023.

It has been clear since at least 2016 that Donald Trump is a threat to American democracy, but as time goes on he reveals his nature as a fascist more and more clearly. Speaking to a campaign rally in New Hampshire, Trump recently said that immigrants are “poisoning” our nation’s “blood.” Adolf Hitler spoke that way about Germany’s Jews. Trump quoted Russian president Vladimir Putin on the “rottenness” of American democracy. Putin has destroyed Russian democracy. He spoke favorably of North Korean dictator Kim Jung-un, whose regime was never democratic, and Hungary’s authoritarian leader Viktor Orban, whose country is nominally democratic but functions as authoritarian. There is a legitimate, broad range of political opinion in this country. That’s how democracy works. But all of us, from the far left to the far right, must wake up to the threat to our country that Donald Trump really is. He is not an ordinary politician with whom it is legitimate to agree or disagree. Putting him back in the White House could be the end of American democracy and bring about a substantial and dangerous limitation on the constitutional rights of all Americans. I don’t think Trump would actually build an American Auschwitz, but his using Nazi rhetoric and his pandering to authoritarian and dictatorial rulers around the world reveal how dangerous he really is.