Look in the mirror, worried Republicans

In the past several months, hundreds of high-level Republicans, including former senators, governors, military officers and national security experts. have come forward to publicly endorse Joe Biden in the upcoming presidential election.

These individuals often state that Donald Trump does not represent the Republican Party that they know and love. They cast Trump as some sort of aberration from normal Republicanism. Unfortunately, Donald Trump is not an anomaly, but rather the inevitable culmination of the GOP's historical behavior.

For how much of a leap is it from the decadeslong practice of Republicans casting any unflattering news as the work of the so-called "liberal media" to Trump branding a free press the "enemy of the people" and "fake news?"

The answer is it isn't a leap at all. It is merely a small step.

And how much of a jump is it from the GOP's racist "Southern strategy," with Ronald Reagan kicking off his reelection campaign with a speech about "states' rights" in the town where three civil rights workers were notoriously murdered, along with his tales of fictional "welfare queens" as well as the Willie Horton ads of George H.W. Bush and GOP officials circulating photos of Barack Obama modified to look like a witch doctor to Donald Trump's exhortations to a white supremacist terrorist group to "stand by?"

And how surprising is Trump's toxic divisiveness given decades of Republican politicians and talk radio hosts vilifying Democrats as evil communists who hate America and seek to destroy it? So as these Republicans work to limit Donald Trump to one term in office I say welcome to the fight. But as you recoil at Trump's behavior, I urge you to take a moment every now and then to look in the mirror and gaze upon the actual source of all you now claim to abhor.

Daniel Welch

Glen Ellyn