Alan Zendell, August 15, 2017

Hey Donald, since you’re such a history maven I have a few questions for you. When the Nazis terrorized England in 1940 and the RAF fought back, were they equally to blame? When Admiral Yamamoto ordered the bombing of Pearl Harbor, were all the brave young American sailors trying to defend our navy partly to blame? When a coalition of Arab nations attacked Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar and the defenders beat the crap out of them, was there blame on both sides?

I have an idea for how to resolve the Korean crisis. The next time Kim Jong Un threatens South Korea, Guam, or maybe Attu Island, why don’t you give an impromptu rant about how this whole mess was really South Korea’s fault for fighting back when the North invaded them in 1950?

Do you realize how lucky you are that you’re a president rather than a Prime Minister? If this were a European country we’d be watching a vote of no confidence on CNN and Fox News tomorrow. In Russia, the opposition would have you signing a resignation letter with a gun at your head. In a lot of less civilized countries, they wouldn’t even bother with a letter.

Being from what you think of as the left, I absolutely condemn (to coin one of your favorite phrases) the notion of violently removing a president from office. But you may have noticed from your two-sentence, history summaries that that sort of thing has happened in our country before, and in the two most notable instances it was a right-wing whacko who took out a couple of our most revered presidents. In case you didn’t get that far in your reading, I’m referring to Abraham Lincoln and John Kennedy.

Is that why you’re so unwilling to call a Nazi a Nazi? You seem to be treading the line very skillfully, as David Dukes continues to thank you for your support on a daily basis. Is that why your good friend, the likable Steve Bannon who is definitely not a white supremacist **wink** is still one of your senior advisors? You don’t think he might loose his dogs on you if you let him go, do you?

If you still can’t see what’s wrong with your shared blame argument, let me tell you a story. Back when one of my sons was in high school he was jumped in the school cafeteria one day. It wasn’t much of fight. My son simply reached back, lifted his unknown assailant off his back and tossed him onto a lunch table which made a very loud noise. As it turned out, the other boy was black but there was nothing racial about the incident – it was simply a misunderstanding about a girl.

Even so, the school administration was so terrified of racial problems in those days, the principal ruled that they were both responsible and both boys were suspended during exam week. My appeal to the school superintendent landed on deaf ears despite supporting statements from two teachers who’d seen the whole thing. It seems that some people can’t imagine a problem that doesn’t have two sides. (Don’t worry, I got even with the supe in classic Trump style.)

I know you’re short on patience; I only have a couple more questions. When you hear white supremacists chanting, “You won’t replace us” as they terrorize our cities, who do you think they’re talking about? I’m sure your ex-friend Kenneth Frazier or your daughter and her husband can tell you. Is that another case of shared responsibility? Does simply existing incur blame on the part of African Americans and Jews?

And now let me share a revelation with you. It only became clear to me when I heard those chants. I’ve been scratching my head wondering about your new immigration policy. We went from banning all Muslims from entering the country to making sure terrorists and criminals were kept out, and suddenly you proposed a plan to cut legal immigration of all kinds in half. I must say that was a pretty subtle move, not normally something we attribute to a bull in a China shop, but I get it now.

Senator Jeff Flake has been reminding us that white males are a steadily decreasing segment of the voting population, despite all attempts to suppress the black vote. Damn, Donald, you’re absolutely brilliant. Did you come up with this yourself? The best way to maintain your white voting majority is to make sure no more black, brown, and yellow people become citizens.

Okay, I’m done now. You can go back to watching TV.