REFLECTIONS/Jonathan Gramling
A Confusing World
When I was interviewing Rev. Gregory Armstrong for our article on St. Paul AME Church, when we talked about the confusion in the world, he said, “Part of the question that I ask is, ‘What is a Democrat? What is a Republican?’ I kind of used to know that. But now that has changed. It raises the question that it is hard to delineate who is who and what is what.”
God knows I can relate.
I grew up in a Milwaukee suburb called Elm Grove. It was a small town that became a Milwaukee suburb complete with fine homes after World War II. I wonder how many of the homeowners there could take advantage of the GI Bill that offered low mortgage-rate loans for veterans — that is if you were a Euro-American veteran. There weren’t too many Black folk living in Elm Grove.
We moved there when I was about four-years-old. And my older brothers and sister had probably met the Rauh family though grade school at St. Mary’s, the predominant Catholic parish and school in Elm Grove. I was in kindergarten at a public school at the time. But they introduced me to Michael Rauh who was my age and we were good — if not best friends — throughout 1-8th grade.
And I can remember Mike saying with pride that if the Russians ever took over the United States that his father — who was one of the nicest people you would ever want to meet, the owner of the Thorpe Cigar Company that imported cigars from Cuba ironically — would be taken out to the back yard and shot. Mike was pretty proud of that at the time — I don’t know what he thinks now.
And what kind of transgression did Mike Rauh’s father commit? Well he was a member of the John Birch Society. Birch, an OSS officer in China during World War II, was killed by the Chinese 10 days after the end of the war. John Birch Society members considered him to be the first casualty of the Cold War.
One of the co-founders of the John Birch Society was Fred Koch, father of Charles Koch, one of the financiers of the radical Republican movement.
“Koch self-published a 39-page, anti-communist pamphlet "A Business Man Looks at Communism" relating his experiences in the Soviet Union and warning of the threat of Communist take-over,” Wikipedia says. “Koch wrote that one of the "Potential Methods of Communist Take-over in U.S.A. by Internal Subversion" was "Infiltration of high offices of government and political parties until the President of the U.S. is a Communist. In 1958, Koch became a founding member of the John Birch Society, a far-right American political advocacy group that opposes communist infiltration.
This is where my confusion sets in.
When Russian President Vladimir Putin was just about to invade the Ukraine, a democratic-led country in Eastern Europe, this is what Donald Trump had to say according to CBSNews.com:
“Trump called Putin "smart" in a radio interview with "The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show" on Tuesday, after the Russian president gave a speech that laid out his justification for Russia's move into Ukraine. "I said, 'This is genius.' Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine of Ukraine. Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that's wonderful. So Putin is now saying it's independent, a large section of Ukraine. I said, 'How smart is that?' And he's going to go in and be a peacekeeper."
This is the first former U.S. President in my 50-60 years of paying attention to U.S. politics to speak up the “enemy” of U.S. foreign policy. Russia has invaded a friend of the U.S. and Trump is praising the person who initiated the aggression? Again Trump is giving aid and comfort to the enemy in this particular conflict. Isn’t this treason? After all, wouldn’t Fred Koch agree? Again, a quote from Fred Koch:
“Koch wrote that one of the "Potential Methods of Communist Take-over in U.S.A. by Internal Subversion" was "Infiltration of high offices of government and political parties until the President of the U.S. is a Communist.”
Isn’t that what Donald Trump was, especially with his latest praise of Putin? Isn’t Trump an agent of Putin and Russia? Isn’t Trump exactly what Fred Koch was talking about?
So why are the Republicans so enamored of Donald Trump and by association Putin?
This is again the confusing part. Why are the Republicans so enamored with Donald Trump who appears to be a Russian agent, an agent of a Communist country?
I just don’t get it. My late father, a conservative Republican, would be rolling in his grave. And the late Mr. Rauh, who was a John Bircher, would be rolling in his grave as well.
As a post-script, I wonder what Putin and Trump talked about when no one except the interpreter were allowed in the room during their meetings. Was Trump telling Putin that he had his back? We will never know.