Robert Francis Kennedy was the liberal icon of the late 1960s — and now one of his speechwriters is backing the upstart GOP candidate, Donald J. Trump.
Adam Walinksy came out Sept. 21, in the pages of Politico, with an article titled “I Was RFK’s Speechwriter. Now I’m Voting for Trump. Here’s Why; The Democratic Party has become something both JFK and RFK would deplore—the party of war.”
I was a Democrat all my life. I came to Washington to serve President John Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy. When the president was murdered and his brother struck off on his own, I joined his Senate campaign and staff as his legislative assistant and speechwriter, until his presidential campaign ended with his own assassination… This year, I will vote to elect Donald Trump as president of the United States.
RFK was campaigning for president in 1968 when he was murdered by Sirhan Sirhan, an Arab immigrant who brought his anti-Israel politics with him to the United States.
“So profound a [political] change, and a decent respect for old friendships, requires me to deliver a public accounting for this decision,” Walinksy writes to his Democratic friends.
Here it is. John and Robert Kennedy devoted their greatest commitments and energies to the prevention of war and the preservation of peace. To them that was not an abstract formula but the necessary foundation of human life. But today’s Democrats have become the Party of War: a home for arms merchants, mercenaries, academic war planners, lobbyists for every foreign intervention, promoters of color revolutions, failed generals, exploiters of the natural resources of corrupt governments …
Hillary Clinton … has pushed America into successive invasions, successive efforts at “regime change.” She has sought to prevent Americans from seeking friendship or cooperation with President Vladimir Putin of Russia by characterizing him as “another Hitler.” She proclaims herself ready to invade Syria immediately after taking the oath of office. Her shadow War Cabinet brims with the architects of war and disaster for the past decades, the neocons who led us to our present pass, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen, in Ukraine, unrepentant of all past errors, ready to resume it all with fresh trillions and fresh blood. And the Democrats she leads seem intent on worsening relations with Russia, for example by sending American warships into the Black Sea, or by introducing nuclear weapons ever closer to Russia itself…
Donald Trump has been mocked mercilessly for saying, “America first.” But to demand that all the actions of government, at home or abroad, be first directed at the interests and well-being of our own country is not old-fashioned or outmoded. Rather it represents the deepest wisdom and tradition of American statesmen from the founders on. Only with a clear vision of what is truly in the interests of our nation and our fellow citizens, and a full commitment to those interests, can we act wisely at home and in the world beyond…
Truly, America first, last and always; for ourselves and for our posterity. These are the reasons why I will vote for Donald Trump for president.
Read it all here.