Francis A. Avila Jr.: Republican Party needs a good cleansing to rid it of racists
During the late 1950s William F. Buckley published a series of articles that effectively excommunicated Robert Welch and the John Birch Society. The conservative movement he founded was to be free of any tinge of conspiracy mongers, anti-Semites, and those who romanticized the defeated Confederacy. It remains a remarkable act of political hygiene.
Fast forward to 2017 and the distance between Buckley and President Trump can be measured in intellectual light years. Trump is entirely too coy and reticent in calling out the assorted cretins of the “Alt-Right.” One would think it would be the easiest thing in the world for a Republican president to publicly condemn and disassociate himself from those who march under the banner of National Socialism. President Trump is not a racist himself, but the racists have claimed him and have crawled out of the woodwork and are marching openly because they suspect they have a fellow traveler in the White House. He must disabuse them of this notion.
Trump needs to remember that he occupies the office once inhabited by Abraham Lincoln and everything Lincoln stood for in his career was diametrically opposed to the doctrines of white supremacy. The gap between Lincoln and Trump proves Darwin was wrong; evolution runs backwards in American politics.
Francis A. Avila Jr., Modesto
This story was originally published August 18, 2017 at 1:17 PM with the headline "Francis A. Avila Jr.: Republican Party needs a good cleansing to rid it of racists."