We have watched the arriving and leavings of Trump Administrative people and many conjecture as to why there is such a turnover. Mostly, the upheaval and ugliness of working at the White House for Donald Trump is cited. What is either glossed over or ignored are the dynamics that must be playing out when many of the people so involved and appointed by the Donald have a hate philosophy and political ideology to which they adhere.
We knew Rob Porter when he was a very small boy. Active, energetic, and into everything. He came to visit his grandparents. These grandparents were not publicly acknowledged as such but they were the people from whom came his mother. His grandmother was from Germany and spent several years in Austria when her father was Ambassador from Nazi Germany representing the Hitler regime. His grandfather was high up in that regime.
They came to visit from Argentina and went back and forth. From Argentina to the United States – always to visit their “daughter’ and her family.
In-between times the “family” met up in Europe or wherever Rob Porter’s mother was traveling to so they could spend quality time together and so Rob Porter and his siblings could get to know and stay in contact with their “real grandparents”.
When we were introduced the grandparents had Spanish names and spoke the language of Argentina. After a couple visits that dropped and they began to call each other by their real names. Something they clearly only did when alone or with friends.
Like many, they had a family secret, which little by little began to come out. Rob’s grandmother and grandfather had to flee Germany when the Nazi’s lost power and they fled to Argentina. His grandmother had a very small child – a baby – who she did not want to grow up with the stigma of being a Nazi, even though a very prominent one so Rob’s grandmother gave her baby daughter to a very close friend and took a step back. That must have been a profoundly painful thing to do because as we saw her – in spite of her Nazi training and leanings – her humanity and love towards her daughter was clear to see.
She talked about giving her daughter away with the expectation of not seeing her or her daughter ever knowing her mother, but as things turned out, they spent quite a bit of time together. They stayed with us often until the grandfather died of brain cancer. He came to the United States several times for treatment and we understand, after his death, his wife moved to the United States to be close to her family.
When I heard Rob Porter had a job which was so close to Donald Trump and he would know everything that happened in the White House, my blood ran cold. Why? Because we had many conversations with his grandparents and he was clearly exposed to a strong Nazi doctrine from a small child.
We had many conversations which ranged over the universe. His grandmother was very gracious and seldom engaged in anything other than talk on a general and surface level. His grandfather was taken with me and not in a positive way so in spite of trying to keep the conversations on a surface level he often let loose with his politics. The strongest of his comments which started such conversations came when I was holding forth, as is normal for me, on topics which run deep and not always positive towards how things work in the U. S. At first he was interested to know about the life of an African American in the U. S. After a few minutes, however, he always interjected as to how grateful I should be just to be allowed to exist in this country.
What made my blood run cold when I heard of Rob Porter’s job next to Donald Trump, working so closely and knowing so much about the inner workings of these United States, came from all that I knew about the political input that went on during his growing up years – from having seen how much he adored and how much time he spent with his grandparents who were definitely Nazi Royalty – and as time passed and people like Stephen Miller and all the rest began to surface, what I saw was a young man surrounded by those like him in an administration that reeked with Nazi influencers carrying out their basic philosophical and political beliefs, attempting to change this country to one in which they would be much more comfortable because the minorities of the world would either not exist or be kept in their place where they would be grateful just to be allowed to work for those who, following the Nazi Doctrine, were believed to be genealogically, intellectually, spiritually, and in their skin and hair color and texture the “chosen” few of this world.
Add to that a knowledge of Donald Trump as having spent his young adult years with his first wife and young children, having a copy of “Mein Kempf” next to his bedside and reading it every night the way most people read the bible and you have a lens through which to look at this administration which says it will spread evil such as this world has never seen before.
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