As a Republican of long standing, I suppose I should get my schadenfreude working and enjoy the mess that the Democrats have gotten themselves into with the Wikileaks email dump showing that the party hierarchy worked to secure Hillary Clinton’s nomination while trying hard to maintain the fiction that there was actually an open process.

Instead, I’m disappointed that all the people who donated money and time, who worked the phones and canvassed their neighbors, and who took the trouble to attend their caucuses, were played for chumps. The fix was in all along. The grass-roots people were used as pawns.

Sure, as a Republican, I want my side to win. But as a citizen, I’m disappointed (again) in our politicians who cynically play the little people for money and support. It serves to increase cynicism and decrease participation in our whole system of government. And I believe that the Republican Party insiders would have liked to try something similar if they could have done so without getting caught. They are all cut from the same cloth.

I know that the Democrats have apologized. Nonetheless, they got their way by skullduggery. And apologies are cheap.

The Democrats got caught, and more email releases are forthcoming. It won’t get better for them. But their dishonesty hurts all of us, on both sides of the aisle, who believe in the notion of citizenship.

Norman B. Blake

West Baldwin