Suffering from “Abandoned Constituent Syndrome" ?

Dear Senator McCain

I am writing to ask you to adopt me. I am an abandoned constituent. There’s a diagnostic name for it; “Abandoned Constituent Syndrome.” It occurs when both of one’s United States Senators lose interest in your opinions.

John Barrasso and Mike Enzi are good people but they don’t spend any “quality time” with those of us who don’t think the way they do.

I realize your hands are full representing all the people of Arizona. But my two Senators have their hands full representing just some of the people of Wyoming. They don’t have time for me and I need a Senator.

One can’t live in Wyoming long without recognizing Republicans have no need to listen to their other constituents. Accordingly, I felt neither neglected nor abandoned when Wyoming’s Republican senators voted for everything George W. Bush wanted and against everything Barack Obama proposed. It was a game. That’s the way they played it. But this is different. This is Donald Trump.

I could have asked Democrats like Chuck Shumer or Al Franken to adopt me. What I really want is a courageous Republican. All of us will need one in the near future. It first occurred to me to ask you when Trump said you were a loser for becoming a POW and spending five tortured years in the “Hanoi Hilton” and my Senators, your Republican colleagues Barrasso and Enzi sat quietly during that sick attack on your bravery.

Just as you wouldn’t agree with me on everything, I don’t agree with you on everything. I was deeply disappointed with your vote for Rex Tillerson. Still it was refreshing to hear you express skepticism about the relationship between the new Secretary of State and Russia. At least you made it clear to the nominee that you had concerns. Both of my Senators got in line, said nothing, and voted their tribe. They didn’t even express any interest in the fact that this man appears to be too close to Vladimir Putin. That worries me and I am glad to know that someone in the Senate cares.

One of my current Senators, John Barrasso, wasn’t at all troubled when Mr. Tillerson said he couldn’t agree that Putin was a war criminal despite Russia’s bombing of hospitals and civilians in Syria. Senator Barrasso said he just doesn’t know “the definitions in the international courts.” Odd for a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

I decided the time had arrived to petition you for an adoption when neither Senators Enzi nor Barrasso uttered a word when Trump claimed there was no difference between our country and that led by Putin. I knew I wanted to be your adoptive constituent the moment you responded to the President’s unpatriotic assertion. Barrasso and Enzi sat silent while you said, “There is no moral equivalency between that butcher and thug and KGB colonel and the United States of America.”

These are the times that try men’s and women’s souls and should try their conscience. Silence is acquiescence. Going along with Trump is putting party before country. How I wish it had been one of my Senators who said, as you did, “I have done what is right for this country under Republican and Democrat presidents. I will continue to do so.”

The day is coming when Trump must go. I fear Wyoming’s senators will do then what Wyoming Republicans did in 1974 after there was evidence beyond any reasonable doubt that President Richard Nixon was so corrupt that he had to go.

Senators Barrasso and Enzi will wilt when Trump’s time comes as did Wyoming Republicans at Nixon’s reckoning. But you’ll do what another Arizonan did in 1974. It was Senator Barry Goldwater who finally went to Nixon and said, “It’s over.” Because of Goldwater’s courage, Nixon realized it was, indeed, over and he resigned.

There are many others like me in Wyoming suffering from Abandoned Constituent Syndrome. I suspect you’ll soon be hearing from them as well.