To the editor,
On November 8, 2013 the 50 States and District of Columbia held elections for President of the United States. The results are in and at last count as many as 306 electors were won by Donald Trump.For the benefit of those who forgot their High School Civics, Article 2 of the Constitution makes it clear, the Sovereign State Elect the President. The State Legislatures are empowered to select Electors in whatever manner they see fit. There is no requirement that popular vote be held. In fact it was process where States slowly started adopting a popular vote. It was not until the 1830s every state in the Union finally decided to hold a popular vote.
The Founding Fathers in their wisdom understood that pure Democracies are dangerous. They are the equivalent of two wolfs and one lamb deciding what the next meal should be. They also gave us a Union of Sovereign States, not subservient Provinces. The States created the Federal Government and therefore it should be the States that Elect the President.
The results are in and Donald Trump and Mike Pence won the Electors who will vote on Dec. 19 2016.
Our Republic has survived this long because we have always had a peaceful transition of power. Yet there are some taking to the streets to riot, committing and calling for acts of violence. We aren’t talking about legitimate protests. That is a First Amendment right. We’re talking about violence. We’re hearing for people call for the assassination of President Elect Trump. Yet neither current President nor Hillary Clinton has spoken out to condemn this behavior. The silence is indeed deafening.
Over the past 8 years, conservatives have often protested the actions of the sitting President. They often held signs that some might find distasteful. Some questioned his legitimacy as a natural born citizen. But we didn’t see car windows being smashed; we didn’t see police cars set aflame; we didn’t hear multiple calls for political assassination; we didn’t see people being beaten for voting for President Obama. Yes we saw strong language; but it was all protected free speech, no matter how distasteful some may have found it.
It’s time for rioters to be put in jail where they belong. It’s also time for the members of the crybaby caucus to grow up.
Here in Watertown, those of us who opposed the Community Preservation Act, aren’t taking to the streets, breaking storefront windows, looting stores, threatening to kill the proponents. We may be planning on defeating some of them at the ballot box next year. But we accept the results of an election.
Why is it that the radical left can’t do the same?
So on behalf of the peace loving Patriotic Citizens of Watertown, I call upon our local Elected Public Servants to individually condemn this un-American violence. No I don’t want the Town Council to pass a resolution or to even waste time debating. But I call on each Councilor to issue a public statement condemning these riots, this violence, and the threats being made to President Elect Donald Trump.
John DiMascio
Chairman Watertown Republican Town Committee
That one single letter from one single man could contain so much drivel is indeed impressive. However, one wonders if the incessant rate at which this man of the chair is compelled to submit these letters constitutes an abuse of the public forum which this website and editor has afforded to him and others. At this point why don’t we just call him a columnist and he can weekly issue whatever demands he has for whatever local board he would like to have enact them. Everybody has opinions. Not everybody has functioning sense of propriety. We call those people jerks and you can usually find them relegated to the comment sections of the world.
Well, Mr. Trump has yet to clearly and explicitly denounce the racist, anti-semitic acts that have been going on since his election which might calm hotheads.
Shep Ferguson
Right you are Shep. The hiring of Steve Bannon seems to confirm that, at the very least, Mr. Trump is appeasing the racists, white supremacists, misogynists, xenophobes and other assorted haters who were key to his election.
The Electoral College is an arcane artifact of a slaveholding society and needs to be abolished as it has interfered with democracy on several occasions.
Mr. DiMascio has a talent for delivering malarkey and mangled logic as if he were being paid by the word.
Perhaps a brief history lesson is in order.
Obama’s election in 2008 was preceded and followed by violent attacks and property destruction targeted against minorities. Kaylon Johnson, an African American campaign worker for Obama, was physically assaulted for wearing an Obama T-shirt in Louisiana following the 2008 election. The three white male attackers shouted “F*ck Obama!” and “N*gger president!” as they broke Johnson’s nose and fractured his eye-socket, requiring surgery.
More frequently, Obama’s presidency was marked by effigies of our first black president hanging from nooses across the country, for example in Kentucky, Washington State, and Maine, or being burned around the world. What Trump supporters fail to remember is that following Obama’s election, property was destroyed across the country, for example in Pennsylvania, Texas, and North Carolina, and a predominately black church was torched in Massachusetts.
I think Mr DiMascio and the Town Council in general should reach out to the residents of Watertown who are probably terrified that they don’t share the same skin color as Mr DiMascio. I am proud to be from Watertown, growing up here with such diversity and exposure to different cultures shaped who I am today. I have not heard of one incident that he describes happening in our town also I am sure that our Republican friends here in Watertown do not share the same fears as their Middle Eastern/foreign neighbors do. I for one will be on the lookout for incidents of violence and property destruction, and I’m not talking about some white kids from Oregon coming here throwing rocks, I’m talking about those in this community should they decide to commit any hate crime against any minority or person of color, sexual preference, or religion. I hope everyone can get behind that in this community regardless of who you voted for or political affiliation.