As an Immigrant and a Former NSA Board Member, I Know America is Better Than Trump
By: James Adams
As a comparatively recent immigrant to America and one who has benefited much from this great country, I rarely comment publicly on politics and belong to no political party.
However, this election is different and I have been astonished at how this great country of mine (yes, I abandoned my country of birth and became a US citizen) is apparently at risk of abandoning all those great values that attracted me in the first place.
I was born in England, a country which is perhaps America’s strongest ally. Yet even though I had a successful career over there, I always felt more at home over here. In England I would tell friends of a business idea and be met with the response: “That will never work old boy. We tried it 300 years ago and it didn’t work then.”
Explain the same idea to Americans and they would say: “That’s a terrific idea. Do it. What can we do to help?”
It was the passion and exuberance, the belief in the possible, the embrace of the positive that won me over. But there was so much more.
A year after becoming a US citizen, I received a call from General Mike Hayden, then Director of NSA. We had met some years earlier when I was researching a book and now he wanted my help.
“Would you come and join the Board of NSA and help me make some changes,” he asked.
As a former journalist who had spent much of his career trying to peer through the keyhole of the front door of the intelligence community, I accepted with enthusiasm. A few months later I was helping redesign signals intelligence for the 21st century, helping the counter terrorism effort and playing a modest part in trying to keep this country safe.
That is America: A country that embraces its immigrants, puts them to work and encourages the optimism and passion that are hallmarks of this nation.
Since then, I’ve started a few companies, provided employment for hundreds of people and continued to give back to the country which has given me so many opportunities. My two daughters even say ‘Tomaytoe’ instead of “tomahtoe” and I’m proud of them.
This country that I know and have come to love is one of rich diversity, unbounded optimism and a deep sense of mission to share our values with anyone who will listen. And those values matter in this troubled world: a belief in the individual, respect for democracy, reason rather than force, hard work and opportunities for all who seek to better themselves.
Of course, some get left behind in the struggles of life. But then in America there is a deep sense of compassion for the less fortunate both at home and abroad, a sense that all can be lifted up with the help of the many.
Yet, as I have watched the Trump campaign unfold, it portrays an America I have never seen and one I don’t understand. Its leader talks of making America great again through hate, division and class warfare. But America is already great and has become so by disavowing all the things that Trump wants to employ.
America has fought dictators and despots since the country’s founding. Yet Trump seems to think Vladimir Putin, who has given corruption a new meaning and uses torture routinely as an instrument of power, is a decent fellow. He has even encouraged this foul man to hack into Hillary Clinton’s emails, an act of treason in a country less tolerant than our own.
To Trump, allies seem to matter little and the rule of law even less. Instead he appeals to the basest instincts of greed, hatred and vendetta which is all fueled by an astonishing ignorance matched only by the size of his ego.
I’m saddened by all of this. But I trust that this wonderful country that remains a beacon of hope to millions around the world will see Trump for what he really is: a fascist dictator in the making. He has no place in the White House come November.
