To the Editor:

I returned from a visit in NoCal to find to find that the MAGA candidate for president had been deified (“The Crucifixion of Donald Trump,” and “The Chosen One send by God”), and had embarked on a new, more supernatural gig than selling Trump steaks and vodka, gold hightops, and “Victory 47” perfume topped with a golden “T” (imitating Christ’s humility).

This time, a $60 Trump-endorsed leatherette King James Bible. The recent question of why we need lawyers (in a nation of laws) is answered in that an ex-president charged with 80-odd felony counts for acts forbidden in the Ten Commandments and elsewhere in the Good Book, and incidentally in the criminal code, is compelled to hawk these trinkets to pay lawyers to keep him out of jail. Perhaps a little less carny barker and a little more legal curiosity would have inured to his benefit.
Trump has refashioned his constituency into a congregation, convincing them of his quasi-messianic mission, increasing his use of dehumanizing (“they’re animals”) and darkly apocalyptic language. If he is not re-elected, he warns, the Democrats will have cheated (regardless of the facts) and we will experience an “Oppenheimer”-like doomsday; we will lose World War III and America will be devastated by “weapons, the likes of which nobody has ever seen before,” language wallowing in fear, doom, threat, and violence.

In your editorial last week, Martin, you blamed the current administration for “abandoning Ukraine in the middle of the fight….We lack effective leadership at a time when nuclear war is imminent.” The Democratic proposal to aid Ukraine has been on the table for months. The Republican House refuses to pass it. One political Party wants to support Ukraine, and ultimately the free world, against Russia. The other openly admires Russia and Putin, Orban and Erdogan, and believes in America First (and only). Someone the caliber of Margie Green is the foreign affairs mouth of the Republican House. Yet, you blame the Democrats.

One Party wants to invest in improved border control/funding and one doesn’t (until after the next election). The Republican House repeatedly turns on each other in a frenzied zero-sum political purity game which has halted legislative solutions and resulted in the abdication of several disgusted Republican legislators. And still, you blame the Democrats.
“I cannot write about a happy future when all I see ahead is confusion, chaos, and war.” Much of that confusion, chaos, and fear is engendered by Trump to arouse vulnerability to his message of “I alone can do it.” The guy can really sell stuff to some people.

Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.