This is the second time my visceral discontentment with Donald Trump urges me to share with you my own personal feelings and thoughts. Personal, is the key word.

The first time was when he attacked the integrity of a judge because of his Mexican heritage, which enraged me because my father was a judge. This time, I am dumfounded by his nauseating attack on an America Muslim Gold Star family.

It is personal because I am a most proud American who was born and raised by a Muslim family in Egypt. It is personal because of how strongly I could relate to the father’s dignified anger and the mother’s dignified grief. It is personal because of that family’s skin color and accent. Let me explain.

I am reminded of a time in one of my classes at Northern Michigan University when I showed a short video of a quantum physicist who was a Muslim with dark skin and an accent as he not only explained a most complex subject in a way that a sixth grader could understand it, he actually made it sound poetic.

The first comment from a student when I began a class discussion to elaborate on the video was this. “He is so stupid. I could not understand anything because of his stupid accent”. How can an accent be “stupid” I said silently to myself? Had I known then what I know now, I would have probably predicted a future like that of Mr. Trump waiting for that young man. A future of sheer blinding bigotry.

So much has already been written and said about this “episode” of Trump’s circus show. Some describe it, and him, as scary. It is here where I beg to differ. Trump does not scare me. Not with all of his nonsensical adolescent-like thoughts and actions. He disgusts me.

What I find to be really frightening is how many support him. He is deadly dangerous and total ignorance of anything except, perhaps, his acumen in ripping people of off with a breathtaking lack of any sense of decency. Not only would I be frightened if he should win.

I am certain that Europe and the Middle East would also be frightened. I am certain that the most knowledgeable of our military and our foreign policy experts, etc., but indeed everyone with a grain of wisdom will be more than just deeply concerned. However, I highly doubt if ISIL or Russia would harbor any fear. He is precisely what they dream of.

This time I feel a glimmer of hope watching some of the Republican Party leadership make their disagreement with the man to whom they acquiesced and upon whom bestowed the honor of being the party’s nominee. But where are the rest? Where are the former great Republican secretaries of state and national security advisers and diplomats? And, what happened to the honorable paradigm of country before party?

I am both comforted and proud that we have decent conservative journalists the like of David Brooks and George Will who have been sounding the strongest of alarms about how calamitous it would be to the world if Mr. Trump is elected.

This quote from a recent column by Mr. Will is worth not only reading many times, it should be considered a clarion desperately begging us to become sober “Putin is etching with acid a picture of America as ignorant, narcissistic and, especially, unreliable. Trump validates every component of this indictment, even saying that the U.S. commitment to NATO’s foundational principle – an attack on one member is an attack on all – is not categorical.” David Brooks has brilliantly labeled Trump as the candidate of the Apocalypse.

I do feel the pride of being an American basically every day of my life. I felt it even at the times I was the recipient of bigotry, hatred, and racism because of my faith, the color of my skin, and my accent.

Hard for so many Americans to understand, perhaps, but I urge you to “take it from me.” Our country is not a “loser.” Our military is not a disaster. Our economy is not frail. Our country is, without a hint of a doubt, the beacon of and for human values and decency.

Just like Mr. and Mrs. Khan, I longed to come to America because I had learned what America is truly about. I came to America not to be an Egyptian living in America but as an American who was born in Egypt.

There has never been a microsecond of regret, and it is with certainty that I know there never will be one.

Editor’s note: Mohey Mowafy of Marquette is a retired Northern Michigan University professor.