On April 3, I received the following email from a longtime friend who has become a fanatical Stormtrumper:

Steffen, WE are worlds apart on our beliefs & knowledge when it comes to political differences. Although I am astonished that I have always referred to you as “an educated & intelligent individual”, I now feel that your opinions are simply based on total hatred because of your negative references.

In other words – you are nothing more than a typical deranged democrat with nothing good to offer this Country nor the American People other than “HATRED” for a duly elected President who will undoubtedly be re-elected in a landslide of the American People..  

I felt it necessary to point out to my accuser that I was not “a typical deranged democrat”:

While I am liberal on some issues, I am CONSERVATIVE on others. Unlike you, I DON’T support a man who sides with the former head of the KGB against our own FBI and CIA. If you want an example of this, you need look no further than his dual press conference in Helsinki with Putin on July 16, 2018. 

Vladimir Putin

Associated Press Reporter Jonathan Lemire said to Trump: “Just now President Putin denied having anything to do with the election interference in 2016. Every U.S. intelligence agency has concluded that Russia did. My first question for you, sir, is who do you believe?”

Trump responded by attacking Democrats and the FBI as partners in a conspiracy: “You have groups that are wondering why the FBI never took the server, why haven’t they taken the server? Why was the FBI told to leave the office of the Democratic National Committee?

“I have President Putin. He just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be, but I really do want to see the server.”

That, in my view, is treason.

If you choose to support such a man—and you clearly do—that, by extension, makes you an ACCESSORY to his treason.

I felt it necessary to point out that

Your “duly elected President” had the full support of Vladimir Putin and the Russian Intelligence establishment. 

[On July 9, 2016, high-ranking members of Trump’s Presidential campaign met at Trump Tower with at least two lobbyists with ties to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. The participants included:

• Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr.;
• His son-in-law, Jared Kushner;
• His then-campaign manager, Paul Manafort; 
• Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer with ties to Putin; and 
• Rinat Akhmetshin, a former Soviet counterintelligence officer suspected of “having ongoing ties to Russian Intelligence.”

Donald Trump

The purpose of that meeting: To gain access to any “dirt” Russian Intelligence could supply on Democratic Presidential Nominee Hillary Clinton.]

But let’s not forget all those dedicated Russian bots who flooded the Internet with real “fake news.” And, as I said earlier in this email, Putin is the only world leader—in fact, the only person, period—Trump has never dared insult. 

I had urged my friend to avoid Fox News Network and Donald Trump’s press conferences as sources of reliable information on Coronavirus. He, in turn,  

asked me if we should get our updates from [Democratic Presidential candidate] Joe Biden. No—Biden is NOT a doctor. He’s a politician. And when you’re dealing with a deadly pandemic you want medically-sound advice, not political pablum….

Your most recent email follows the pattern used by Trump and his cheerleading chorus at Fox News: It’s filled with insults, but not one actual piece of evidence to back it up.

“Fake news” is the standard response for those who don’t want to provide a rebuttal—because they don’t have the evidence for one and THEY know it most of all.

Dismissing—with insults—any news that doesn’t jibe with how you want things to be is a guaranteed recipe for disaster.

The Original Nazis kept insisting that victory was just around the corner—all the way up to the moment when the Russians were knocking at the Fuhrerbunker.  

It didn’t save the First Fuhrer and it won’t save the Second.  Nor will it save you.

* * * * *

Many liberals believe that Donald Trump’s base simply doesn’t understand the sheer evil of the man they are following. And that—if only they can be educated on this point—they will desert him.

This is to deny that human beings have a choice—to do good or evil. Following that logic, every member of the Mafia is simply a helpless ignoramus, waiting to be educated out of a lifetime of extortion, drug-trafficking and murder.

The truth is that those who support Donald Trump know exactly why they do so: Because their hatred for millions of their fellow Americans overrides everything else.

So long as Trump feeds into their hatred—of blacks, Hispanics, “uppity” women, liberals, atheists, non-Christians, among others—they will enthusiastically support him. 

One day, Donald Trump will be a despicable memory for most Americans—-as Adolf Hitler is for most Germans.

But the millions of hate-filled Right-wingers who elected him and fiercely support him will still be with us, searching for their next champion of hate.

Recently a longtime friend of mine sent me a furious and insulting email.  I hadn’t insulted or harmed him in any way, so it came as a total surprise to me—-until I read it.

He and I had long disagreed about the virtues of the Trump administration. I had assumed that politics was one of those areas where we would agree to disagree and still remain on good terms. So you can imagine my surprise when I opened his email and found this waiting for me:

Steffen, WE are worlds apart on our beliefs & knowledge when it comes to political differences. Although I am astonished that I have always referred to you as “an educated & intelligent individual”, I now feel that your opinions are simply based on total hatred because of your negative references.

In other words – you are nothing more than a typical deranged democrat with nothing good to offer this Country nor the American People other than “HATRED” for a duly elected President who will undoubtedly be re-elected in a landslide of the American People..   

At first I hesitated to reply. We had been friends for more than 20 years, and I didn’t want to risk ending such a long and otherwise enjoyable friendship. But I quickly decided that a strong reply was not simply in order, but demanded.

Too many people—especially Democrats—-allow such assaults to go unanswered—-and, even worse, unpunished. As a result, they find themselves the victims of even worse attacks.

Here, in part, is the email I sent him in return. 

I find it amazing that so many Right-wingers who preach HATRED against millions of their fellow Americans are the first to scream HATRED when those THEY hate refuse to accept their lies or aggression.  

For example: From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, Trump fired almost 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions that had somehow offended him.  That doesn’t sound like a love-filled man to me.  

Donald Trump

The Original Nazis behaved the same way: They had no hesitation about invading other people’s countries and massacring their inhabitants. But if a country dared resist their aggression, the Original Fuhrer yelled “They’re attacking me!” 

If you HONESTLY look at the way your Commie-kissing Fuhrer has handled the COVID-19 outbreak—-and NOT in the way Fox News is portraying it–then you must realize that he is responsible for its now infecting so many tens of thousands of Americans.

For starters: In 2018, he gutted the White House Pandemic Office which President Obama had set up in 2014 at the time of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The purpose of that office was to act as an early-warning system for the next epidemic.

But Trump, as a lifelong racist, has tried since taking office to destroy every vestige of Obama’s legacy. So, naturally, the White House Pandemic Office had to go. 

To put this in military terms: It was like deliberately shutting off the radar system before an enemy launched a devastating airstrike. 

COVID-19 virus

News of the COVID-19 outbreak emerged by the end of December, 2019. But your Fuhrer frittered away the first two months of the year.

He diminished its virulence. He claimed it was no more than a version of the common cold. He didn’t take action to see that the nation’s hospitals were supplied with medical equipment for combating a mass plague.

He has blamed governors for the virus that is now sweeping the nation—-instead of doing what a LEGITIMATE President does and taking it upon himself to organize an effective, well-coordinated response to the emergency.

Why? because he didn’t want to say or do anything that might cause the almighty stock market to fall. From Day One of his Fuhrership he has bragged that the stock market owed its success entirely to him. He feared that if it fell, so would his chances to be re-elected—-which is his ONE, OVER-ARCHING OBSESSION. 

Responding to his charge that I was “nothing more than “a typical deranged democrat” I wrote: 

I have plenty of criticisms to offer the Democrats—-most importantly, their general tendency toward cowardice every time a Republican yells “boo!” at them. The Democrats, for the most part, offer the country a party of Neville Chamberlains when what it desperately needs is a party of Winston Churchills.

I AM admittedly liberal on some things—-such as the right of a woman to decide for herself whether she wants to have children. 

While I am liberal on some issues, I am CONSERVATIVE on others. Unlike you, I DON’T support a man who sides with the former head of the KGB against our own FBI and CIA.  If you want an example of this, you need look no further than his dual press conference in Helsinki with Putin on July 16, 2018. 

Associated Press Reporter Jonathan Lemire said to Trump: “Just now President Putin denied having anything to do with the election interference in 2016. Every U.S. intelligence agency has concluded that Russia did. My first question for you, sir, is who do you believe?”

Trump responded by attacking Democrats and the FBI as partners in a conspiracy.