In a Washington Journal article, August 9, 2017, Colin Taylor, commenting on a Buzzfeed interview with six European

diplomats, alleges a consensus of suspicion exists between them regarding 45, i.e., the losing but winning candidate in the U.S.

2016 presidential race. Three million popular votes short but 74 Electoral College votes to the good.

"But the most disturbing part of their criticisms is the confirmation of a widespread suspicion about the President – he is

consumed with a hatred for Barack Obama and intent on destroying his legacy at all costs.”

In truth, the same can be said for the majority of the Republicans in the Senate and the House of Representatives over the span

of President Obama’s two-term presidency. Senator Mitch McConnell declared at the outset the singular intention of making

Obama a one-term president. And throughout his tenure, McConnell and ilk embarked on a campaign of obstructionism like

none ever seen in the history of American government. Over and over they worked relentlessly to stymie, block, and clog the

wheels of government against the welfare of the nation for political revenge and expedience—even to the point of risking the full

faith and credit of the United States to honor her debts. Shutting down the government and threats thereof was their signature

gambit to spite Barack Obama, and even now, they seem bent on tearing down his legacy, rather than improve the lives of

Americans.

So while Trump is a special case of spite-driven derangement conflated with megalomanic delusions of eminence, the whole

GOP wing failed America before his entry, by practicing partisan extremism and hate mongering—actively courting hate group

support and participation into their ranks. Now presently as his sycophants, they continue their destruction of our democracy.

Trump is not some strange oddity, some aberrant degeneration that grew inexplicably in the American consciousness. He is in a

sense as American as apple pie, the rotten fruit that spoiled on ideas of bigotry and prejudice of all kinds. Afflicted by its own

paralysis of selfishness, it has always been with us crippling the American Dream.

Carl Hitchens