My older friend asked me to get her mail from the front-porch mailbox at her home on a recent afternoon. I grabbed the stack, and one particular “letter” immediately caught my attention.
The return address simply read “Melania Trump” in big, blue letters. The bottom right corner of the envelope was stamped: “Check Enclosed.”
I chuckled to myself. I’ve seen versions of fund-raising letters like this for decades. What made me smile, though, is that my friend is in no way a Republican and is certainly no fan of the Trumps. How in the world she got on Melania Trump’s mailing list is as much a mystery to her as it is to me. After teasing her for a few moments, I asked if I could open the letter. She said sure; she certainly wasn’t going to.
It’s pretty typical of the fundraising letters all politicians send out, Democrats and Republicans and anybody running for big office. It’s actually not from Melania Trump but, rather, the Republican National Committee.
Of course the letter touts Trump’s achievements in office – the great economy and vague accomplishments not clearly spelled out. As for the economy, the Trump administration has simply continued the recovery started under President Barack Obama after Obama rescued the nation from the Great Recession. Indeed, if Trump didn’t sling tariffs around like his golf clubs, the U.S. economy likely would be doing better.
Farmers certainly would be. Just ask one.
And the Melania’s letter doesn’t refer at all to Trump’s racism, underscored again after he callously told four women of color in the U.S. House of Representatives to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” All four are U.S. citizens, three born here. They are trying to fix the country they came from: the United States in the wake of Trump’s crimes and destructive rhetoric.
After being called – once again – a racist, Trump replied as all racists do: “I don’t have a Racist bone in my body!” If you are not racist, you don’t have to defend accusations of being a racist.
Trump not only has racist bones, but also xenophobic bones, homophobic bones, and misogynistic bones. And, of course, he’s got lots of white nationalist bones and Angry White Man bones.
Racist? Sure Trump is racist, and he’s proud of it, and many of his supporters love that about him. Indeed, if you support Trump, you also support his hate. Live with that. Don’t deny it. Own it.
Of course as much as Trump hates immigrants, Melania fails to answer questions about her own checkered immigration past. She claims she was always legal, yet half a year before she received permission to work in this country, she was a nude model in New York, and being paid for that. She used her influence to get her parents a green light to emigrate to the United States, even as her hate-boned husband decries what he calls “chain migration.”
Much of the first lady’s letter, though, is an attack on Democrats: “We simply cannot let the Democrats win the White House and set the stage for them to capture total control of our government so they can enact their Socialist programs. Their radical agenda would reverse everything Donald has accomplished and would once again put our nation on a ruinous course.”
Fear. The Trumps need you to be afraid. And stupid.
Want to talk “ruinous” courses? How about Trump’s war against health care? More than 20 million Americans may soon be without health insurance because of Trump’s campaign against the Affordable Care Act. What about the country’s environment? Trump has rolled back important regulations which will lead to many more Americans’ deaths because of contamination and pollution. What about climate change? Trump still ignores the science and calls climate change a “hoax.” What about immigration? Trump cages kids and separates families and aggressively deports asylum seekers who are fleeing the terror in their own countries. Of course, these are the immigrants of color. We see very little action against the “white” undocumented immigrants, of which there are more than 650,000 in the United States.
Oddly, Melania’s printed signature looks very similar to Trump’s. I guess he ordered her to sign like that – illegibly. It’s an angry signature, like the president’s. Melania Trump is an Angry White Man, too!
Of course, Trump now owns the Republican Party. Most Republicans are scared to death to challenge him. They have become the party of racism and hate. And Trump sycophants in Alabama, like Bradley Byrne and John Merrill, are OK with that.
We should not be but, sadly, too many of us are.
My friend said I could go ahead and throw away her Melania Trump letter. I guess I will. Or maybe I’ll keep it as a reminder of just how twisted Trump-love is.
Joey Kennedy, a Pulitzer Prize winner, writes a column every week for Alabama Political Reporter. Email: jkennedy@alreporter.com.
