Dear Editor,

This letter is in response to Bob Martin’s Nov. 15 column in The Advocate-Messenger. 

Martin starts out by agreeing with President Obama’s request that we restore “the presumption of good faith in our fellow citizens.” But he couldn’t allow the admonition to do something conciliatory and gentlemanly to pass without slipping in a canard that, “our liberal friends insist we have no foreign enemies to fear.” That statement is complete garbage and made up out of whole cloth. 

Martin then goes on to complain about the demonstrations that have taken place across the United States against the Trump “victory.” I say “victory” because it now appears that Hillary Clinton actually won the popular vote by as many as 2,000,000 votes! Never in U.S. history has a candidate won the popular vote by such a large margin only to be named the loser of the election. Martin seems conveniently to forget that a week before the election Trump hinted darkly that, “The election was rigged” and that he was under no obligation to honor the results. You can be certain that if HRC had won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote by 2 million votes there would have been no concession speech or, in fact, any concession at all! 

Martin laments the Trump supporter supposedly “pulled from his car” while ignoring the more than 300 reports from the Southern Poverty Law Center of violence and threats against those opposing Trump. He praises the Trump supporters as “average U.S. citizens who love their country and are very worried about their families and their future.” I believe this is true, and it no doubt describes many Democrats as well. However, he conveniently fails to mention the whole-hearted support of Trump by the KKK and other white supremacist organizations under the “Alt Right” nom de plume. And now we have the spectacle of Steve Bannon, the publisher of Brietbart news, ascending to become Donald Trump’s chief advisor. If one supports Trump, he or she effectively allies himself with a very scary and undesirable element in American society.

Following eight years when Republicans did everything possible to show their complete and utter disdain for a president who won both the electoral college and the popular vote by over 5 million votes, the Republicans are dismayed that some voters might have the audacity to demonstrate against their candidate who is supported by white supremacists.

Jim Porter

Danville