What’s more important to the safety and future of our country – support of party, or support for our country?

Adolf Hitler used hate, fear, division and racial superiority to gain control of Nazi Germany, which led to the deaths of millions.

Donald Trump has taught us to hate and fear Hispanics and blacks; next, it will be anybody who disagrees with Donald Trump. Wealthy white Americans got draft exemptions for college during Vietnam while the poor blacks went to war to protect them and died.

We’re supposed to hate and fear people who come to this country and do the menial jobs no one else will do. We’re supposed to hate blacks who protest when one of their own is killed by a police officer. We’re supposed to hate blacks even though they fought to hold the Union together in the Civil War. Without their service, we would not have won that war and there would be no United States.

We’re supposed to hate these people who have stood by their country even while having been made to sit in the back of the bus. Blacks have seen their people lynched for no reason at all. An 11-year-old black boy was murdered for whistling at a white woman. Three civil rights workers were murdered during the civil rights movement.

Is this a country based on hatred? Is Donald Trump more important than our country? Are the Republican or Democratic parties more important than our country?

For Congress members: Is getting re-elected more important than our country? Do we want our country to wind up like Germany?

What do we do about Trump? We support him when he is right, we fight him when he is wrong and we expose him for what he is. We impeach him if we can, and if not, we fire him in four years.

Richard B. Wise

retired commander, U.S. Coast Guard

Portland