Letter: Saying ‘no’ to Alex Beinstein

In the May 15 Aspen Times news story “Carbondale’s Beinstein just says ‘no’ to Trump,” the Republican primary challenger to Scott Tipton is characterized as “definitely not jumping on the Donald Trump bandwagon.”

Since this expression denotes the joining of a movement mindlessly and/or opportunistically, we are to infer that Beinstein is a principled idealist, as distinct from ill-educated, knuckle-dragging Trump voters who let their emotions interfere with their judgments and better natures.

For example, unlike Trump and Tipton, apparently, Beinstein “believes in Abraham Lincoln’s ‘open, tolerant message.’” One wonders, can he be speaking of the president who suspended habeas corpus and waged a ruthless war in order to hold together a house divided? If only a President Trump proved to be so “tolerant”!

He also frets that Trump is “so alienating to Hispanics,” leaving me to wonder just how thrilled immigrants from Mexico are by the influx of Salvadorans and Guatemalans into their neighborhoods, schools and job markets — with neither families nor educations — people whom Mexico itself will not admit, except perhaps to push northward toward the U.S. In “flooding the zone” with illegal immigrants, President Obama is flooding their zone, as well, and we may see many Hispanics actually voting in their own self-interest.

Similarly, America’s Muslims also actually may appreciate Trump’s proposed temporary “reset” of continued Muslim immigration. According to Beinstein, however, “I don’t think you can tell (all) Muslims, ‘You can’t come into our country.’”

And why ever not? What universal principle or moral law entitles them to be here? By what calculus does Beinstein deem them a net plus to life in America? If he is concerned with Trump’s negatives, what about those of Islamism? Is he paying attention to what is occurring in Europe?

In the struggle to put America first, Beinstein’s sensitivities serve no one.

Chad Klinger

Basalt