Hopeful change is in the air for GOP

To the editor:

For perhaps the first time since the 1970s, when then-Gov. Robert Ray opened Iowa as a haven for Southeast Asian refugees, I can honestly say I am proud of an Iowa Republican leader.

Iowa GOP Chairman Jeff Kaufmann stated clearly and forcefully why the Confederate battle flag is anathema to freedom-loving people in general and Republicans in particular: 'We are the party of Abraham Lincoln. We were the party that supported the Union Army, and we are still that party of Abraham Lincoln. I absolutely won't tolerate (the Confederate flag). We have no room in our party for people like that - none.”

Would the couple who defiled Marion County Fourth of July parades by honoring three Confederate dead commemorate dead World War II German POWs by flying the swastika banner? The Confederate battle flag, like the swastika, symbolizes a militarist, racist regime which fought to preserve slave labor, and which as a matter of policy encouraged its commanders to commit war crimes. More surrendered U.S. soldiers were killed by Confederates at Fort Pillow than were murdered by the Waffen-SS at Malmedy.

I hope change is in the air for the GOP. Kaufmann has made clear there is no room for neo-Confederates in his party, and has articulated the importance of governing for all of the people, not just fanatical bullies in his party's base. Bob Vander Plaats has become friends with Donna Red Wing of One Iowa.

I hope the GOP has turned a corner in renouncing its worst tendencies.

Jeff Klinzman

Coralville