June 11 — To the Editor

So many career Republicans are now wringing their hands: "Oh, whatever will we do about Donald Trump?" They're terrified that not only will he lose the election and let another Democrat into the Oval Office, not only will he cost them dearly in downticket races, but that he will ruin whatever noble thing it is that they thought the Republican Party was. Trump's style of juvenile insults and idiotic slogans, they think, is ruining the Party of Reagan.

Give us a break. In 1992, Ronald Reagan wrote Rush Limbaugh a letter of thanks for promoting the Republican Party, calling him "the number one voice for conservatism" in the United States. Reagan was right. Soon after, Limbaugh called Chelsea Clinton "the White House dog." He did it on the radio for the whole wide world to hear a grown man pick on the looks of a 13-year-old girl.

Rush Limbaugh is not unique for hateful comments that cross the line of decency. You could fill pages with abominable quotes coming from right-wing propaganda personalities. Ann Coulter calling on carpet bombing Middle Eastern countries and converting Muslims at the point of a sword; Michael Savage popularizing the quote, "liberalism is a mental illness." What these people have done, with winks, nods and words of encouragement from elected Republicans like former House speaker Newt Gingrich, is turn the Republican Party into a cesspool of loathing.

But, today, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is suddenly gnawing his knuckles about Donald Trump? Does he live in a house with no mirrors? In 2012, Mitt Romney solicited the endorsement of shock rocker and NRA board member Ted Nugent, one of the vilest people in the right wing inferno — a man who boasts of his patriotism today but formerly bragged about dodging the Vietnam War by showing up to a draft board after not having showered for a month and wearing pants full of his own week-old feces - a man who also sired a son right here in Dover, then ignored him for the first eight or so years of his life until the boy's mother sued for child support, upon which event Nugent threatened to sue for custody — not because he wanted closeness with the child, but because he wanted to frighten away the mother. Ted Nugent is a font of hateful quotes, and Romney ignored all that out of political expedience.

Donald Trump is the product of the political base that the Republican Party has courted for decades. Donald Trump is the leader that they deserve. The Republican Party is not the Party of Reagan. Today's Republican Party is the Party of Trump. Today's Republican Party is a cult of hate.

Yours truly,

Stephen D. Clark

Stratham