Being a Patriotic American in 2024 is not Easy

Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart 

This 78-year-old man is not convinced that the nation of our Founding Fathers is worthy of saving. The men and women we elect to serve all of our nation’s people cannot be trusted. At least 40 million of our nation’s citizens no longer believe in what it means to be an “American.” I do not understand what has happened to my country over the last eight decades. 

No one who is not part of my generation can remember what it was like to experience the pride of being an original baby boomer who was the product of parents who survived the second world war and hoped to experience a nation of people proud to know that the fascist agenda of Adolf Hitler had been destroyed. Our democratic nation had been an integral part of his defeat. 

Patriotism permeated our lives. Movies and television offered never-ending reenactments of the heroic efforts of American soldiers and their courageous and dangerous actions to save the world from rule by Adolf Hitler. 

NO HITLER IN MY WHITE HOUSE   

Trump’s first wife, Ivana, told her friends that before they went to sleep at night, her husband would read the speeches of Adolf Hitler in 1930’s Germany. 

Trump has several heroes. Everyone knows that the greatest villain on earth and America’s biggest enemy is at the top of his list: Vladimir Putin. By his own words and actions, he idolizes Adolf Hitler. Others on his list include the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammad bin Salman, Philippine dictator,  Rodrigo Duterte, and the President/dictator of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. 

Trump brags that he will be America’s first dictator if elected in November.   

I DON’T KNOW THIS COUNTRY IN WHICH I LIVE TODAY 

The estimate is that about 40 million citizens will support Trump regardless of the number of criminal convictions he may face, or how many women he has or will rape. His Klan knows that he is unfit and unqualified to be the President of the United States, but they don’t care as long as he protects the “rights of pure white Americans.” 

Yes, America, this is the truth. The mainstream media is hiding the truth about “Big Adolf.” A large number of his cult are members of various Neo-Nazi hate groups. Several members of the House Freedom Caucus, which adamantly support Trump and Putin, have been seen in attendance at rallies and/or meetings of Neo-Nazi groups. 

Trump is not an American, nor are most members of his MAGA Republicans, more accurately “The American Fascist Party.” 

For an old man like me, an original baby boomer, these facts disgust me. America wasn’t easy in the 1950’s and 1960’s but 99 percent of our nation’s people were “flag wavers,” and proud of it. It meant something, something great to be an American. 

Most of the people I knew felt lucky to be a citizen of the United States of America, but no better than anyone else.  

Millions of American citizens believe that a fascist, a man who hates the America of our Founding Fathers, is a better choice to lead our nation, than a man or woman who is loyal to all Americans and will keep their oath to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” 

Trump is an agent for at least one of those enemies. 

Op-ed by James Turnage 

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