In his biography, “Trump Revealed,” Trump’s view of human beings is summed up in his own words: “Man is the most vicious of all animals, and life is a series of battles ending in victory or defeat.”

His policies and pronouncements follow from his philosophy. Trump wants to change our country into a fortress, like the Soviet Union with its Iron Curtain succeeded in doing for so many years before President Reagan’s clarion call to tear down the Berlin Wall led to its dissolution. Trump wants to build an even higher wall to separate us from Mexico. This is not the same Republican Party!

It’s now official. Politics is no longer the art of compromise for the good of the nation, but the art of war. Trump’s dystopian vision for “Making America Great Again” is to turn our country into a double-gated community of ruling elite who rule by power and choose to wall out not only foreigners but both our indigenous poor and our children, by trumpeting ignorance.

Trump’s attacks on educated scientists and economists has now culminated in 50 Republican senators and our vice president approving a Trump-nominated Secretary of Education who wants to revolutionize public education by siphoning off our elite students into charter schools, where they can be propagandized into becoming group-think Republicans rather than group-think Democrats, like those today who voted ideological party lines. Our children need to be educated to think for themselves, processing true facts rather than “alternative facts,” which is a euphemism for lies.

Life is indeed a series of battles, but most do not end in permanent victory or defeat. With the apparent exception of modern senators, the majority of humans choose not to act as “the most vicious of animals,” but, given true facts, choose to mitigate viciousness with life-giving truths.

We are still the majority. Local control of education remains the key.

Tom Driscoll

Poulsbo