LETTER: State GOP Panhandles in the Name of Trump

Submitted by Stella Hawkins, Greenwich, unaffiliated registered voter

Imagine you are a registered Republican in the state of Connecticut. A State where Donald Trump garnered a paltry 41% and 39% in each of the past two presidential elections. Since his 2020 loss, he has incited an insurrection at the US Capital in an attempt to reverse the results of the 2020 election, is the subject of further investigations into Jan 6th (including one by a Special Counsel), is being investigated for his meddling in the Georgia State election results in 2020, has just been indicted for crimes, and generally has embarrassed himself and the Republican Party. 

Then this happens.  

As a registered Republican, you  receive emails from the State GOP from time to time. But none like the ones that were emailed last night. The first email you would have received in your inbox would have arrived at 8:20 and was labeled “From the Desk of Chairman Proto”. He being Ben Proto, the State GOP party chair. It read; 

INDICTMENT OF PRESIDENT TRUMP BY FAR-LEFT MANHATTAN DA REPRESENTS WEAPONIZATION OF GOVERNMENT

Our Fundamental Civic & Political Rights are in Jeopardy” 

You are being told by your  own state GOP chair that you should be concerned about your fundamental rights , because a former President who attempted to STEAL AN ELECTION was indicted for his shady dealings with a porn star? As your brain tried to process that incongruous prospect you  gathered your senses and close the email in hopes that nothing more will be said about his topic. Only to receive a second email two minutes later. 

This one from the CT state Republican party, CTGOP. You once again sit in awe as you read its headline; 

It started with absurd impeachments and attacks while in office, and now they wont stop until Trump is behind bars. We must stand with DJT and fight back to save America.” 

After that unconvincing and cringeworthy opening pitch, CTGOP continued by asking me the “Donate Now” in order to “Stand With DJT”. 

As a Greenwich Republican, you mostly likely  read the article in the New York Times last November titled “In Affluent Greenwich It’s Trumplicans vs Republicans” so as a savvy resident you are aware of the lurch to the Right of your once stable and effective local Republican party. You notice the historically poor showing in the midterms by Greenwich and statewide Republicans as their far-right candidates got soundly defeated. So, it strikes you as mind boggling that the state GOP and its Chairman are now panhandling for dollars using a rallying cry based around their party’s disgraced former President, who has done harm to the Republican brand statewide 

I am writing this letter in the hopes that it will help Republicans understand how truly lost the Party is. A Party that I belonged to for a very long time. The local Republican Town Committee is packed with “Trumplicans” and routinely display an ignorant attitude toward the needs of our community and the interests of their own constituents. 

Ask yourselves this question. Why would a registered Republican in this town donate any money to the state GOP under the pretense that you should “Stand With DJT”? Do you really stand with Trump?  Do you stand for his values regarding his business dealings and his personal life? The Republican Party was once the  party of Lincoln, Teddy R, and Reagan. It was NOT the Party of a man like Donald Trump or his coterie of wayward followers.

For me, these emails confirm one thing. That the GOP will go the way of The Whigs. Sad times.