Letter: Springtime for Donald and Amerika

I had my morning coffee listening to the Aspen Public Radio report that “The Donald” had won the local Republican caucus with 35 percent.

Seriously?

As someone who would have been on one of those cattle cars (for oh so many reasons) and someone who likes to learn from history, my dear conservative friends, whiskey tango foxtrot are you thinking?

This is a moment when we the people will choose. Are we an empire, or are we a republic? If we vote for someone who advocates torture, racial profiling and religious persecution, we prove to the world that democracy has failed. Don’t kid yourself — the rest of the world knows a demagogue when it sees one.

The surprise is that it took so little to topple the democratic idea. All it took was a stock-market crash and some mortgage fiddle-faddle. The last time we faced monetary collapse, we pulled together through the Great Depression and emerged through the fires of World War II a stronger nation. We fought against the demagogues and won. We were magnanimous in victory and ensured the peace.

Do we vote to continue our great American experiment and vote for a government “by the people, for the people”? The alternative is far worse than monetary collapse. It is moral collapse; it bursts the bubble of hope for self-governance around the world and drives a stake through the heart of our republic.

Whiskey tango foxtrot are you thinking?

Ziska Childs

Aspen