Read this carefully; it’s not a joke. It began with fake-news celebrity Bill O’Reilly; he claims that Donald Trump’s success is the fault of President Barrack Obama. Why not? The right wing extremists blame him for everything else. O’Reilly says that the President’s policies in the Middle East have made our nation less safe, and his open immigration policy increases the danger. Trump has focused his campaign on ISIS and Hispanics, and GOP voters are not bright enough to ignore fear tactics.

Of course both the TEA Party and Republicans are jumping on the bandwagon. They won’t accept the fact that the last seven years of failure by the GOP has infuriated voters and a vote for Trump is a vote against the status quo. The influence of the extremist members of the TEA Party destroyed what was once the Grand Old Party. The lack of quality legislators without experience, and proved that they simply didn’t care, created Trump.

Trump is simply using decades old Republican tactics; appeal to the racists in the party and convince them that the wealthiest Americans will help America prosper.

I send quotes daily to my family and friends. I find words of wisdom, hope, virtue, and sometimes humor. Today they came from our 34^th President, Dwight D. Eisenhower.

I’m pretty sure that Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz know nothing about the man and his legacy; they prove it with their radical rhetoric. Eisenhower was a great general during WWII, and the man who became our President post-war, leading us into the future, not the past.

Here are four of the quotes I sent to those I love.

“This world of ours… must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.”

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”

“The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.”

Does this sound like the Republican Party of today? Not a single GOP candidate believes in the words of a man who was a true Republican and cared for our nation’s people and their future. His philosophy was not based on fear; it was based on hope and compassion for those who needed assistance. He did not support the wealthiest of our nation’s people; he supported all of us who were proud to be Americans.

Placing blame on the wrong person or situation has become a GOP tactic. None of those who currently call themselves Republicans accept the responsibility for our failed government. America cannot survive without two functioning parties. The GOP is split and has become completely dysfunctional. In 2010, the creation of the TEA Party by the Koch brothers signaled the demise of Republican ideals and principles.

Donald Trump is the result of failed leadership within the GOP. His support is a perfect example of ‘destruction from within.’

That won’t stop the GOP from ‘passing the buck’ to someone else for their failures; but the truth cannot be hidden.

Op-Ed

By James Turnage

Source

Photo Courtesy of Marion Doss

Read ‘James Turnage on Kindle