As the massive Republican presidential candidate field narrowed down in 2016, I wrote quite a few Musings sharing my thought processes. Donald Trump was not a natural choice for me, though by the time election night came I was fully on board. This time around, only a few avid never-Trumpers are even thinking of a Republican primary challenger and some of those are openly declaring  that they would prefer a Democrat to our current President. I think they are grossly mistaken and astonishingly self-destructive, but they aren’t interested in listening to me. However, some of you might be.

I spent a lot of time during my most active mothering years trying to convey the power of speech to my children. One daughter had a hard time understanding that if she lashed out at a sibling with cruel words, by the next day she might have forgotten her hurtful outburst , but her sibling hadn’t. Other children found my recommendation that when something went wrong they should say, “Dearie, me!” laughable (o.k., it was laughable) but they knew that I had better not hear them saying anything stronger. Name-calling, gossip and crude language was absolutely frowned upon in our house.

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