Today’s Letter from an American by history professor Heather Cox Richardson had some red flags for the voting public to look out for as we head into these final months before election day. Here are some of the highlights:
Trump’s plan for revenge: Ivan Raiklin. Remember that name. He lives in northern Virginia and tried to run for U.S. Senate in 2018. Heather wrote:
“Yesterday, Raw Story reported that Ivan Raiklin, Trump’s self-declared ‘Secretary of Retribution,’ has compiled a ‘Deep State target list’ of 350 people he wants to see arrested and punished for ‘treason’ if Trump is reelected. The list includes Democratic and Republican elected officials, journalists he considers to be Trump’s enemies, U.S. Capitol Police officers, and witnesses against Trump in his impeachment trials and the hearings concerning the events of January 6, 2021.
“Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) told Raw Story: ‘His hit list is a vigilante death warrant for hundreds of Americans and a clear and present danger to the survival of American democracy and freedom.’ The Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment. Raiklin said the list was just the beginning. ‘This is the scratching of the surface of who is going to be criminalized for their treason, okay?’ ”
This is not American. This is not even legal; at least, not yet. These are the things we need to hear and read in the news.
Project 2025: I’ve asked before and am asking again – what happened to the Heritage Foundation? Heather wrote:
“On a right-wing podcast yesterday, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts said that Trump’s agenda and Project 2025 have ‘tremendous’ overlap. ‘There are some quibbles and differences of opinion here and there, which not only is okay, but it’s actually good,’ Roberts said. ‘I mean, we’re gonna be able to sort those out once the presidential administration declares what their priorities are.’ He said that Trump’s attempt to distance himself from the project was ‘a political tactical decision.’ Media Matters uncovered a video in which Project 2025 director Paul Dans said that Trump is ‘very bought in with this.’
“The Heritage Foundation, the key author of Project 2025, is a sponsor of the Republican National Convention.
“Today the Heritage Foundation preemptively accused the Biden administration of cheating in the 2024 election and warned that Biden might try to hold the White House ‘by force.’ It said that Biden and his administration could ‘circumvent constitutional limits and disregard the will of the voters should they demand a new president.’
“There is no indication that Biden, who has repeatedly said he will accept the election results, will try to launch a coup against the United States government. In contrast, Trump, who has refused to say he will accept the election result unless he agrees with it, has already done exactly what Heritage is trying to pin on Biden: Trump tried to stay in office against the will of the voters in 2021.”
As I read over the list of author names for various articles of Project 2025, there was former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli writing about Homeland Security. That is not a good thing.
Trump is a convicted felon: He is the Republican 2024 presidential nominee. Heather wrote:
“Trump is currently under criminal indictment for that attempt, although the Supreme Court’s eye-popping July 1 decision in Trump v. U.S. declaring that a president cannot be prosecuted for crimes committed as part of a president’s ‘official duties’ means Trump can challenge those indictments. Indeed, in the wake of that decision, Trump’s lawyers have filed a motion to vacate the jury’s conviction of Trump on 24 felony counts related to the falsification of business records in his attempt to skew the 2016 election, and to dismiss the indictment.”
NATO: Trump tried during his administration to take the U.S., a founding member, out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. He failed then but if given another chance he will go at it again. Heather wrote:
“While the U.S. and our allies celebrated the seventy-fifth anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Erin Banco of Politico reported yesterday that Trump advisors have told foreign officials that Trump plans to scale back U.S. cooperation and support for NATO, including reducing the sharing of intelligence with NATO countries.
“This seems likely to be related to the news that the U.S. intelligence discovered a series of Russian plots to assassinate executives from European defense companies that are supplying arms to Ukraine. Americans took that intelligence to Germany and foiled a Russian plot to kill the chief executive officer of a German arms manufacturer.”
My number one issue is national security. While others claim pro life or other movements as their reason for politics, I have one thing to say: None of that would be possible if you had bombs dropping on your head. Think about September 11, 2001. NATO is essential to maintaining peace in the world, and Trump’s coziness with Putin – the Russians! – to pull the U.S. out cannot happen.
After two weeks on the golf course, Trump reappeared. Here’s what Heather wrote:
“Trump has stayed home playing golf for the past two weeks, but on Tuesday he held a rally at his Doral golf club outside of Miami, where he kept the audience waiting outside in 90-degree heat before he showed up an hour late. His 75-minute speech was, as The Guardian’s Richard Luscombe reported, “full of evidence-free claims that his 2020 election defeat was fraudulent; baseless accusations that overseas nations were sending to the US ‘most of their prisoners’; and a laughable assertion that a gathering of supporters numbering in the hundreds was really a crowd of 45,000.” He also claimed that Biden had quadrupled the price of bacon and said, ‘We don’t eat bacon any more.’
“Trump did not mention his vice presidential pick. For the first time since 1988, it appears the Republicans will go into their convention without knowing who that pick will be.
“Luscombe reported that the crowd ‘appeared mostly subdued,’ yawning and playing on their phones.”
If you are truly interested in what is going on, I urge you to sign up for Heather Cox Richardson’s daily newsletter, Letter from an American. In it, she cites her sources so you can look them up yourself.
This election is vitally important to the future of our country. I pray we go in the correct direction.