First off, Allan, I tried to quit before you did. It didn’t work out so well. I can see where you must be exhausted and a little demoralized that Trump is still hanging in there, and with Barr now in a critical spot it looks like Trump’s take over might really succeed. After all he either becomes dictatot or ends up in the clink. So there’s nothing he won’t do in order to obtain absolute power.

It would seem that the race between democracy defeating Trump before Trump defeats it is running neck and neck, so that from day to day I switch sides as to which I believe is going to prevail. The really scary part is that about 40% of the nation seems to possess a mindset perfectly attuned to accepting one man rule. Please take away the awful burden of my personal responsibility, they are saying to themselves. Do my thinking for me big daddy Trump.

On the other hand the United States is not like Germany whose natural resistance to dictatorship was broken my the nation’s virtual defeat of WWI. Unlike Germany sixty percent of Americans will resist Trump, although not as fanatically as Trump’s hard core followers will support him, because he and they are of one, sadly, crazy mind.

What gives Trump all his advantage is that hate, not love, is the most powerful of unifying forces, and he, like Hitler, is a master of exploiting that factor. So we are at the greatest test of the American experiment in demacracy since the American Civil War of 1861–1865. We survived that test with the help of the great Abraham Lincoln. Unfortunsately the anti Lincoln now infects the White House. But unlike the Civil War era, American institutions of freedom and her ideals have had time to grow much stronger. So at this time who really knows if freedom in America and the world has run its course.

Good luck, Allan, if we aren’t marched off to some death camp I expect to be hearing from you in the future.

Your friend,

Jim Ridgway