But Donald Trump didn’t get there the same way other nominees in previous presidential elections did. A couple of months before the Republican Convention, Julian Assange (of Wikileaks) injected himself into the US presidential race. With the help of Russian hackers (supported by Vladimir Putin), Wikileaks began to

• release information – detrimental to Hillary Clinton – which was hacked from the DNC server;
• engage in campaign of misinformation and character assassination of Hillary, Donald Trump’s opponent.

It was obvious (to me) such action by a foreign entity should not be encouraged or accepted by any patriotic American, the outcome of which would help to do just one thing, to destroy the pillar of our democracy, to be able to elect our public officials through the ballot box without any foreign interference. Despite many pleas (I made) for Republicans to condemn those acts (No one did), Donald Trump’s rallies swelled on the very egregious actions against the country by a foreign entity. Very few Republican Leaders spoke out against such acts; most were silent. Trump’s rallies of division, of racism, of sexism and of violence continued to attract elements of society who were previously sidelined for those very reasons. The Republican constituents, the voters (at least most of them) didn’t care that foreign entities were meddling in our system of elections. Even their nominee, Donald Trump publicly endorsed the idea of Russia meddling in the election process; in fact, he embraced the idea and invited Russia to do more of it. His supporters cheered the idea.

The very next day, no one from any of those rallies would hesitate a second to state s/he is Patriot. Republicans’ lack of patriotism is not a political statement; the phenomenon is palpable, observable, demonstrable, factual. Republicans in general have a difficult time to understand that to defend the country against all foreign entities (states or individuals) supersedes the desire for one’s political party. It seems completely impossible for their brains to process the simple concept that the interference of foreign actors in regards to our democracy is not acceptable under any circumstance.