Former Gov. Whitman gives dire warning on Trump (Opinion)

Partisan politics has gotten so ugly that the party of Lincoln, the party that fought slavery, largely does nothing when faced with a president who tells congresswomen who are U.S. citizens to go back to where they came from. Not everybody who is a Republican has sold their soul. From the beginning former N.J. Gov. Christine Todd Whitman warned voters about Donald Trump. She's still at it. In reaction to his recent rally where the MAGA fever had his supporters screaming, "Send her back! Send her back!", she wrote the following guest column for the Star Ledger.

She started her piece reminding the reader that she denounced Trump in 2015 long before he was elected. Even back then she argued Trump's language was like that used by dangerous dictators of the 1920's and 1930's. We all know what happened there.

Of the incident concerning the congresswomen, she wrote,

"In response to Trump’s tweets against these congresswomen (which he continues to defend), a Virginia church put up a sign stating, “America: Love it or Leave it” in front of the building. Freedom of speech is a basic tenet of our democracy, and separation of church and state has been a foundation of our Constitution, yet the two are so contorted here, it can be hard to unwind."

Her guest column is largely summed up in what she had to say about the rally that came after the tweet.

"On Wednesday night, the president stood before a campaign rally audience that began chanting, “Send her back!” in reference to Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. While he subsequently has denied that he encouraged that, for an extended period of time he basked in it and didn’t resume his speech until the chant died down on its own. How have we fallen this far that a mob would suggest forcefully sending an American citizen elsewhere as a result of her suggestions for improvements to our country?"

You'll find her entire Star Ledger guest column here.

Now Joe Kaeser the CEO of Siemens, a German industrial juggernaut, is also speaking out. He took to Twitter expressing he finds it "depressing that the most important political office in the world is turning into the face of racism and exclusion."

He said he lived in the USA for many years and experienced "freedom, tolerance and openness as never before." He suggested Trump's rhetoric does not reflect the America he's familiar with.

Is Governor Whitman right? Is Joe Kaeser right? If you were a Trump voter, are you still supporting him even after his go back to your country rant? Please take our poll below.

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