OPINION:
While assisting a new arrival to Washington this past week I was asked for directions to Trump International Hotel. The woman who made this request explained with embarrassment, “My husband said for me to stay there and check it out.” After I had greeted her request with a sympathetic response she looked up at me and said: “You know I couldn’t tell any of my friends. People are so weird these days.”
This conversation made me think about the millions of Americans who are being intimidated and silenced daily. Unable to shout a well-deserved “We won,” they have resigned themselves to inward feelings of satisfaction. Subjected on a daily basis to the joyous negativity of the press and the losing side, these millions of citizens pray in the quiet of their homes that America will be great again.
This silencing of opposing opinions has been going on for over eight long years. Folks fear harsh vocal retaliation or physical threat in this America that did not exist before President Obama. Isn’t it time that this “land of the free” became just that once more? It might behoove our political opponents to remember that a large group of their fellow citizens voted and won, just as Democrats did in 2008 and 2012. Intimidation breeds a stealthy resistance, as history shows us. We may be quiet but we are silently cheering on our choice and praying our president can stay the course.
I reassured my Washington visitor that the first chance I got I would head down to the Trump Hotel for a drink to salute my fellow Trump supporters. We smiled conspiratorially.
SALLY MACLEAN
Arlington
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