I would crawl on my hands and knees to vote against Trump

March 5 − To the Editor:

I am a Democrat, and as a matter of perspective, I am beyond dismayed with Joe Biden for a number of reasons, but I would crawl to the polling place on my hands and knees if I had to, to vote against Donald Trump in November.

That said, I have well-educated friends who are utterly unconcerned by the promise of a loss of democracy that an authoritarian second Trump presidency portends. They seem to agree with the late Leona Helmsley who once famously said, “Only little people pay taxes”, and they think Donald Trump is working for them.

I also listen to “little people” on television who are equally unbothered. They don't much like poor people voting by mail, or Black people voting on Sundays, or gay people marrying, and what baker should be forced to bake a cake for a gay wedding anyway? The concept of a loss of democracy is a bit abstract for them, and they think Trump has been working for them also. What could go wrong?

Well, maybe not much, right away, for the members of either group, but sooner or later, an untethered Trump is bound to make changes that neither agrees with. Little people shouldn't forget that bills do eventually come due, and the MAGA plutocrats are going to make damn sure that it's the little people who pay them. Trump and his country club friends aren't depending on Social Security or Medicare, so little people are going to have to get by with less of each, or pay more, or both.

When the industrial air polluters get their way, and they're not big Republican donors for no reason, even the moms and kids at the Mar-a-Lago swimming pool will be breathing the consequences, and just wait until some rich evangelical corners Trump on the golf course and acquaints him with the evils of slow dancing … Trump's very own Amy Coney Barrett, the U.S. Supreme Court's resident Bible interpreter, will be begging John Roberts to let her write the majority opinion!

Some readers might be old enough to remember that when President George H.W. Bush was a Texas congressman in the 1960s, he was one of few Republicans who did not oppose birth control there, and this earned him the nickname “Rubbers”. Don't look now, but Trump's Supreme Court appointees were part of setting a precedent in Dobbs v. Jackson that Clarence Thomas himself has suggested, could give states the right to ban contraception again.

Take it to the bank, Trump is telling you some of what's going to happen, and if he's re-elected and you start not liking some of the other things he's doing, there will be a lot less democracy left to do anything about it. If you voted him in, it's going to be too late to vote him out, because you now live in a payfor-play, fundamentalist Christian theocracy that rejects the idea of political plurality, and your vote, If you can vote, it won't mean that much anymore.

The foregoing is only the tip of the iceberg. Nobody (rich or little) is immune from climate change, air and water pollution, gun violence, book burning or life without rubbers, and slow dancing is just a metaphor for women's reproductive rights. Who knows where else it will lead in 20 to 30 or 40 years, but anyone with children and grandchildren who thinks that The Donald is working for them would be smart to pay attention.

J. Michael Donovan Hampton Beach