Most voters, including most Ridgefield voters, rejected Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton won Ridgefield with 55.3% of the vote, while Trump received just 39.7%. Clinton’s national lead is 2.7 million votes, about 2%. For context, Clinton matched Obama’s 2012 national total, while Trump underperformed Romney’s 2012 national total. But, owing to structure of the Electoral College, Trump will be president. Similarly, a majority cast their ballots for Democratic Senate candidates, but, owing to the geographic distribution of those votes, Republicans will retain control. Essentially, most Americans oppose the intolerance, dishonesty and ignorance the Trump campaign fanned and exploited.
To be clear, these facts don’t change or delegitimize the election results. But, they do put the lie to any claim of a Trump or GOP mandate.
Democrats will not replicate the scorched-earth obstructionism perpetrated by Congressional Republicans since 2008. Democrats will not seek to cripple government or harm the country, merely for partisan gain. Democrats will not threaten a catastrophic default purely out of spite, will not seek to embargo nominations without cause, and will not undermine the legitimate, regular exercise of foreign policy. Democrats will not allow blind partisan calculation to overrule our sacred commitment to safeguard our country, especially the most vulnerable among us.
Democrats will instead restore the cherished American tradition of principled, loyal opposition. Democrats will advocate and organize, will shine unrelenting spotlights, and will persistently and constructively oppose every harmful aspect of the Trump/GOP program at every level. That includes holding apologists accountable for their complicity in the Trump/GOP program.
The national Republican Party’s eager embrace of Trump is unsurprising, as Trumpism is merely the distilled result of the national GOP’s decades-long propaganda program. However, the Ridgefield Republican leadership’s zeal for Trump is extremely disconcerting. Even if they don’t personally exhibit the repugnant prejudices that fueled the Trump campaign, or promote the obscenely dishonest conspiracy theories in which the Trump campaign trafficked, the local Republican leadership’s unbridled enthusiasm for Trump reveals, at minimum, a depraved moral indifference and intellectual bankruptcy.
Marty Heiser, elected Republican member of the Board of Finance, has been a consistent, unapologetic and fervent Trump devotee since the primaries, as evidenced by his many public statements and Facebook posts. The Republican Town Committee (RTC) has published numerous GOP Viewpoint columns expressing unconditional support for Trump. Heiser and the RTC need to explain and justify their ardor for Trump to the more than 60% percent of Ridgefield voters who rejected Trump. They need to explain whether it was Trump’s “birther” promotion, global warming denialism, bullying attacks on immigrants, Muslims and reporters, exhortations to violence at his rallies, brags of sexual assault, professed admiration for authoritarian despots, or appointment of a white supremacist as his campaign CEO and chief White House strategist, that motivates their devotion. They should explain how their professed hawkishness on deficits and national defense squares with Trump’s plans for unprecedented deficit increases and acquiescence to Russian imperialist aggression. We’re waiting.
The Ridgefield Democratic Town Committee provides this column.