“Patriot” and “Traitor” are totally opposite concepts.patriot – a person who loves, supports and defends his or her country and its interests with devotion.traitor – a person who betrays a country, tradition, principle or friend.
In 1776, thirteen English colonies threw off the yoke of being governed by a king and created a unique document to govern themselves. Our founding fathers replaced royalty with elected officials. Free and fair elections are still the main concept that differentiates the USA from banana republics and kingdoms. But now, in a cyber age, American elections must be safeguarded if we are to remain that uniquely free country. Therefore those who violate election laws should be considered traitors to our democracy and be punished as traitors. It’s that simple.
Rudy Guiliani just said, it’s okay to knowingly use stolen hacked information to aid one’s political campaign. Trump said long ago “it all doesn’t matter if I don’t win.” Apparently, some people think it’s okay to do anything to win. To them, the ends justify the means.
But the vast majority of actual American citizens still believe our elections are sacred and their sanctity should never be violated regardless of reasons. After all, one can always make up reasons and justifications to cheat or break the laws which govern us. All criminals their actions when they decide to break, disregard or claim they don’t know – the law.
WHEN IS A CRIME TRAITOROUS?
The dictionary’s definition of “traitor” ( a person who betrays a friend, country, tradition or principle) fits Donald Trump on all four counts. The “Benedict Arnold” definition of traitor – leaking military strategies to an enemy combatant – is not the only definition of “traitor”. Since Trump won’t release the interpreter’s notes of his meetings with Vladimir Putin, we can’t even be sure he has not already leaked military secrets to the Russians. Further, attacking our elections should be considered an act of war. Wars are about taking something from another country by force. there can be wars without killing. So in this cyber age, maybe we have to redefine war. The Trumps – and only the Trumps – have benefited from the traitorous activity in his campaign. Those who carried out his criminal orders, his campaign manager, national security adviser, associates and lawyers are in jail or indicted for crimes. So I see Trump as a person who went to war with our US elections – and enrolled help from our biggest enemy on the world stage. To me, that’s cyber treason. We just released a domestic terrorist after 17 years for less than what Trump did.
Almost daily, Trump betrays our American institutions, principles and traditions.
- Trump betrays a very necessary American institution, the FBI, when he says their agents are somehow evil or “bad cops” because they are doing their jobs and duly investigating the Trump Organization’s many crimes.
- Trump and the GOP were traitors to the founding American principle of a level paying field for all citizens when they tilted the tax system to favor their wealthy donors over average and lower income Americans.
- Trump remains a traitor to the American principle of equal justice under the law. He refuses to be open or transparent with his taxes and business finances even though Congress has the constitutional right and duty to have these documents.
- When Trump Jr. responded to a Russian letter offering election help with “If it’s what you said, I love it” that was traitorous activity. A founding principle of this nation is free and fair elections. Anyone who tries to fix or tilt an election via help from foreign entities who have no natural allegiance to the USA is engaged in traitorous activity.
- When Trump asked Russians to hack Hillary’s emails, he was being traitorous to the American principle of keeping foreign influence out of our elections, which is obviously the smart and right thing to strive for. It is illegal to take foreign money or assistance in national elections. Why? Because this is our home not theirs.
- Money laundering and stashing one’s funds in undeclared foreign bank accounts to cheat one’s government out of 500 million dollars in taxes are traitorous activities.
- When Trump took Putin’s word about not meddling in our elections over the word of our own National Security Agency (NSA) that was a betrayal of our national security. It was pretty clear he did this to protect his business relations with Putin.
PATRIOT DEFINED
Patriot is defined as: a person who loves, supports, and defends his country and its interests with devotion. Trump certainly likes to make believe he is is a patriot and loves photo ops with military people. But Donald Trump was a draft dodger and is a tax evader as well. One who skirts his tax and service obligations is clearly not devoted to one’s country but to one’s own self-interests. And we all know this describes Donald Trump to a tee. ( pardon the pun)
That last word “devotion” is important because anyone who pays taxes is financially is “supporting one’s country”. But paying taxes is a legal obligation to one’s country. paying taxes does not make you a patriot. And even there, Trump tries to skirt his tax obligations. The key word in the definition of patriot is “devoted”. Trump has only ever been devoted to his own – not country.
OUR COUNTRY DEFINED
America was once world-renown as the land of the free. Is America just its land and assets? Or is America also its people and their issues? A free country is comprised of “people living on a land area within set borders, bound by laws and joined by history.”
Trump has no problem calling anyone who does not like or support him “his enemy and an enemy of the state“. He uses that term for the free press, for justices that do not rule his way, but also for those who won’t vote for or support him. When a POTUS deems more than half the citizens he presides over to be his enemies – how can he be thought of as being patriotic to his country? It makes no sense.
One defends one’s country by defending the people that live in that country – not just its land, assets and resources. Not just half the people. Not only one’s wealthy supporters. Anyone – citizen or president – who systematically alienates about 55% of the citizens of his country – cannot possibly be defending his countrymen. Actually, Trump’s incompetence and lack of care or discipline is endangering our country and its citizens.
So by all reasonable standards we have a traitorous, unpatriotic, uncaring, narcissistic and ego-maniacal president. And every day he is in office presents a serious risk we should not willingly be accepting.
It’s time to put Americans first – and that means protecting Americans against what Trump still might do to keep his stolen fortune. And he will do anything for that. Remember Trump said, “it all doesn’t matter if I don’t win.” That means World War is not off the table for Trump if it distracts us from prosecuting him. Letting Russia hack our grid so there is no election at all in November – is not off the table! Nothing is off the table for Trump. Trump is the definition of a loose cannon.
There’s one more thing. I hear some Dems saying don’t start impeachment because it won’t help our 2020 election chances. That school of thought just gives Trump more time in office. And that means those who are okay with Trump staying POTUS for two more years are okay with taking the very same risks they fear with him in office now. It’s like they said, yeah well, he’s not really that dangerous. And that koshers Trump for 2020.
Trump and his GOP stooges must be stained forever for what they have done and for what they are doing to America – the land of the free. That stain should be ingrained into our history books so this can never happen again. We will need the full truth to be exposed. It’s time for hearings. It’s time for Mueller to testify. We don’t need to call it impeachment yet. But hearings will function as a slow-walked impeachment. That is what we will need to save or restore our American democracy.
And for those that worry that it won’t result in the removal of the president because 54 GOP senators may continue to defend the president, even if the majority of Americans want the truth, well at least we will have them on record for defending Trump’s criminal deeds. And maybe the GOP base will get sickened at last about what their sold out party stands for. Because they don’t stand for Americans. When the base starts to be uneasy they will pressure the 54 and then Trump is either done or he escalates our danger.
Finally, we are not the only country trending towards oligarchy. The entire world is watching to see if Americans can save their democracy. If we fail, God only knows where this world is headed.
Relevant prior posts:
This post describes why the world is trending towards oligarchy.
This post describes why we must see Trump’s taxes.
About the Author:
A cyber war is a war of words. Our writers, reporters, techs and artists become our warriors in a cyber war. Raise Our Voices!
Joseph Aronesty graduated from University of Pennsylvania in 1971. He earned a merit scholarship to Wharton School but transferred to liberal arts in his junior year to focus on history, literature and music theory. He was in a class at Wharton with Donald Trump in 1967: International Finance. Trump paid for his homework to get done in that class.
When the internet became viable in 1995, Mr. Aronesty created what is arguably is the world’s first click and buy e-commerce website.
Joseph is also a published songwriter, with hundreds of songs in his catalog. He now writes with musicians in Los Angeles, where he makes his home. He is an activist and some of his songs reflect a political point of view.
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