Editor, Manteca Bulletin,
Making negative blanket assessments of entire groups such as Muslims, Mexicans, transgenders, homosexuals, atheists, climate change scientists, medical marijuana users, women’s rights activists, minorities, the free press or all members of a political party such as Democrats or Republicans has always been viewed a sign of a silly, uninformed and bigoted individual. But apparently in the age of “Trump”, all bets are off. (The letter “You might be a Democrat if . . .” on Jan. 26 by Frank Aquila.
In this case Aquila attacks them all (except Republicans of course) and lumps them under one tent, the Democratic tent. According to Aquila, if you support or in any way show any compassion whatsoever to any of these groups, you should be demonized, a scarlet letter tattooed onto your forehead and deported to Canada or some other Democratic country with free healthcare and free education, which of course is every other Democratic country in the world. Apparently Aquila thinks free healthcare and free education as well as wage and gender equality is an evil endeavor and should be wiped from the minds of all Americans.
The “If” list provided by Aquila about Democrats can easily be “repealed and replaced’ by a much longer list about Republicans, but that would be lumping all Republicans under one tent and like Aquila’s list, would be illogical and simply uninformed. I know plenty of Republicans who do not conform to the Neanderthal thought process employed by Aquila’s list or Trump’s agenda. However, everyone knows about the god-like reverence Aquila has for Trump and all things Trump. Aquila actually believes Trump is his true Messiah and is thus sin free, his every word is a sacred commandment to be etched into the inner most dark recesses of his uninformed virgin mind. So, that said, we can put a short list together to test your own mindset and to see if it is supportive of the Trump/Aquila warped thought process. If, for example:
1. You believe Trump had the largest Inauguration audience ever.
2. You believe the NFL is losing attendance over the NFL Players “Black Lives Matter” protests and those protests are directed towards the Military and the Flag and those players are all “Sons-of-Bitches”.
3. You think building a giant wall across the entire southern border will stop “Those people” who are “rapists and murderers” from entering this country and Mexico will pay for it.
4. You think people on the “No Fly List” should have access to weapons of their choice.
5. We should have a vigilante style society where everyone caries a gun.
6. You believe the KKK has “good” people.
7. You think ANTIFA is a bad organization because you are unaware that ANTIFA actually stands for Anti-Fascism and is actually an opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals.
8. You oppose public schools and your tax money should support private schools for the wealthy including religious based schools. (Christian only of course).
9. You believe transgender and homosexuality is a choice.
10. You believe freedom of expression should be banned.
11. You believe this is a Christian Nation and all other religions should be banned.
12. You believe Christian (Only) and Confederate monuments/flags should be placed on government property.
13. You believe Trump actually won the popular vote because millions of Illegals voted and there should be more voter suppression laws in place to keep minorities from voting.
14. You believe climate change is a Chinese/Democratic hoax.
15. You believe smoking is good but medical marijuana is not.
16. You believe women have no rights over their own bodies and should be forced to have their rapist’s babies, even if their rapist is a family member.
17. You think the opening of national lands to mining and drilling is a good thing.
18. You believe Trump campaign officials meeting with no less than 19 Russian officials and KGB members about gathering damning information against Hillary Clinton was not collusion.
19. You believe the Russian meddling into our elections is a Democratic hoax and that all our Intelligent Agencies who have verified this is true are lying.
20. You are OK with Trump lies (When Politico attempted to measure how many lies Trump told over the course of 4.6 hours of speeches, they found that he lied, on average, once every five minutes. When the Huffington Post catalogued his lies over the course of just one town hall event, they came up with 71 lies.)
21. Spending over $3 million in tax dollars for every trip to Mar-A-Lago with the brunt of the money going straight into Trump’s own pockets and taking over 160 vacation trips in his first 300 days with most going to Trump properties is OK.
22. Passing a tax bill that directly positively affects the very rich, including his own family then lying about how it will “cost him plenty” and how it negatively affects Blue States like California is fine.
23. Being the only president since Richard Nixon became the first to release them to never show his tax records is just fine with you.
24. You think heads of state like Putin of Russia, Duterte of the Philippines and Erdogan of Turkey are great leaders.
25. The factual statement that “His record shows that he rarely does the right thing. He is consistently self-absorbed and self-righteous — a man full of guile, but not an ounce of shame.” doesn’t bother you at all.
26. You believe police should use deadly force at their discretion and should not be questioned about their decisions.
27. You think Trump is not a sexual predator even knowing he has admitted to it on tape and bragged about his methods while having 19 women verify his comments which you do not believe but you do believe the two or three that accused Sen. Al Franken.
And finally, you thought Aquila was creative and clever enough to make up his “If” list on his own just as Trump claimed it was he who actually cleverly invented the phrase “Priming the pump”.
if you agree with Aquila on any of these, maybe that isn’t your only worry . . .

Larry Baca
Manteca