...the hot summer day in 1960 when my father slid into the front seat of our soon to be traded 1955 Plymouth, and drove to the Portage County courthouse in Ravenna, Ohio. Once there he went to the Elections Commission and had his Party registration changed from Democrat to Republican. As a lifelong union organizer, member and union local officer, and as a believer from childhood in the necessity of those who could, helping those who could not, he had wholly rejected all the Republican Party stood for. So why on Earth did he change his affiliation? Why agree to support the anti-union, anti-social programs, anti-welfare Republican Party after thirty years of supporting the Democratic Party?
Here’s why: “I will! I swear I will! If they nominate that Papist, I will change parties!” I’d been listening to that rant for several weeks before the Old Man made his fateful trip to Ravenna. I had been skeptical to say the least. My father was known to say things he meant whole-heartedly at the time, but the follow through was often lacking, especially if what he meant, he meant in anger. Although his antipathy toward the Roman Catholic Church was well known among family and friends, none of us believed he would actually do it. But we had not counted on the depths of the Old Man’s prejudice. The Old Man was a bigot when we came right down to it. It was the Roman Catholic Church that he feared and loathed beyond all reason.
Once Kennedy was nominated, the Old Man had no doubt of his victory. As far as he was concerned, Dick Nixon was an absolute criminal and should be jailed, not voted on for President. However, he was also sure, as sure as Trump’s deplorable, gullible followers are that President Obama was born a Kenyan Muslim bound to give us over to Mullahs and Ayatollahs, that Kennedy would give the rule of America over to the Pope.
It never happened, of course, and in November of 1963 I was awakened in the middle of a cold South Korean night and hauled out of my Quonset Hut barracks bunk to prepare for war because Jack Kennedy had been assassinated. We would never be a nation of Papists, the Old Man later opined, but he did not return to the ranks of the Democratic Party until he was in his seventies (perhaps even his eighties).
Today, the Old Man would be appalled at the Trump candidacy. He would have long since rejoined the Democratic Party. And he would be actively opposing Trump and all he stands for. Trump’s a bigot, but that wouldn’t be the issue. That he happily declares his bigotry and then denies he is a bigot would be...one of them at least. Siccing thugs on protesters as if they were dogs being sicced on rabbits would have him in a fury. But his greatest objection would be that Trump lies. He doesn’t lie like a politician, “spinning” explanations of events. Donald Trump tells lies when the facts are plain, He lies about things when videos show the truth. He lies when the truth would serve as well or better. He just lies because that’s what he does.
Few things scared the Old Man, but Donald Trump would scare him. He would be afraid of having a President who threatened nuclear war because... got ‘em – use ‘em, who insulted and belittled the people of Mexico and any Islamic country you’d care to name, who fawned on the leader of Russia to the detriment of America’s leader or who lied about everything, including facts not in dispute. In short, the thought of a President who behaved as Donald Trump has behaved throughout this campaign would scare my Old Man half to death, and it scares me just as badly.
But what scares me more than anything is that our press, the institution that’s so important the Constitution guarantees its freedom, has apparently ceased to recognize its responsibility to warn me of dangerous people like Donald Trump. I’m out here all alone while they play equivalence games with the two major candidates.
‘hawk