“Difor støttar eg framleis Trump”

                                                                                      Fresno, 10.sept 2020

I was born in 1946 in Oakland, California (in the San Francisco Bay Area). My grandparents came from Italy, Switzerland and France in 1895-1913 and my parents were working-class. They were Democrats who supported Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. I was raised in a Democratic household, went to Catholic schools from the 5^th grade onwards, and to the University of San Francisco, where I earned both a BA and a MA in history and met my wife, Roberta.

Politically, both of us were Democrats; in college we were both rather radical, I’d say. She changed to Republican in the late 1970s and I switched to Libertarian, then Republican and finally registered as an Independent (“Decline to State”), where I am today.

I moved to Fresno in 1969 to teach and worked at Central High (where I had you as a student in the early ‘80s) in 1970-2004. In retirement I continued to write books and articles for history magazines; my latest book (2017) is a history of California published by Amazon (California: On the Edge of American History).

First of all, and I want to make this clear, I have rarely – if ever – trusted or believed a politician. As I used to tell you in class, most of them are whores, in that they will say nearly anything to get elected and when they are successful, they forget what they promised. In fact, a former student who worked as a lobbyist for agricultural interests, told me that I was correct in telling students that.

However, I have often voted for «the lesser of two evils». If a career politician has benefitted our area and kept his (or her) promises, then I will support re-election, usually putting a campaign sign in our yard, signing public declarations of support, writing letters to the editor, etc.

That’s why I’m proud to say I support Devin Nunes, our Republican congressman. Nunes almost single-handedly saved our republic by leading the charge to expose the hoax of the «Russian collusion» in the 2016 election. (There are still Democrat politicians who believe it, but we all know that there are also people who believe the Earth is flat and that we are the descendants of extra-terrestrial aliens. LOL.)

In later years I tended to vote Republican (while preserving my Independent status) because the Republican candidates tended to represent my views and the things I support. I voted very unenthusiastically for Republicans John McCain (2008), an unenthusiastic campaigner and Mitt Romney (2012), a man of no principles, even though (you can see) I didn’t like them (“lesser of two evils”) but I opposed Obama’s socialist views, which I couldn’t tolerate in any way, shape or form.

Honestly, I thought Trump was a joke. He was a real estate developer, a playboy, and a showman with little or no experience in government, higher education or the military. At the time I supported Rand Paul or Herman Cain.

Well, as the Republican candidates were thinned out I came to appreciate him more and felt he was the one who would win. I detested Hillary Clinton, as I did her husband (I referred to him as “the real Clinton” and to her as “the upstart”). With that attitude I would’ve voted for anyone promising against her and the extreme Left that she came to symbolize; her record of lying convinced me. In the campaign, he said the things I wanted to hear, and I believed he could deliver on most of them, but he has.

Trump has been a great president.

His tax cuts and other economic policies have resulted in the lowest national unemployment rate, and particularly black unemployment is at the lowest in over 30 years, his firm policy toward China has led many American companies to return to this country and return jobs to Americans, his border policy has resulted in a reduction in illegal immigration of unskilled people from Central America, the economic confidence he inspires has led to a surge in the stock market to the highest point since the Great Recession began in 2008.   On the other side, the Covid-19 pandemic was an unforeseen event that no leader in any country saw coming and while the Democrats have accused him of mismanaging it, his administration shut down travel from China and then Europe and the Middle East to halt the spread (something his enemies called “xenophobia” but are now silent about,  helped states to deal with it, accelerating the production of vital medical supplies and it is working to get a vaccine produced by early 2021.)

What don’t I like? His overuse of Twitter and his reactions to the jabs his opponents give him. But as to his policies, there is nothing I dislike so far.

Mr. Genini