To the Editor:
I’m genuinely glad you see the danger in Trump’s dealings with Ukraine. That matters. But I’m still trying to understand what you mean when you say you support him “on domestic matters,” because whenever I ask which policies you’re referring to, you never answer.
What exactly is it that you admire?
Is it the governing by insult, the late-night tirades, the lack of verbal discipline, the constant verbal chaos that keeps the country off balance? A senator is a loser, a representative is garbage, a journalist is a pig—and that’s just in the last week or two. What mature adult does that?
Is it the erosion of congressional authority, government by edict, as he declares emergencies, diverts funds, and treats checks-and-balances as inconveniences instead of constitutional obligations?
Is it his immigration record, which is loudly advertised but doesn’t match reality?
Deportations were higher under both Obama and Biden. What increased is lawlessness; it’s cruelty—ICE agents arresting U.S. citizens in “papers, please” sweeps, children pulled from parents, families scattered. And for what? What did that brutality accomplish other than trauma?
Is it the tariff whiplash, imposed without strategy, that sent farmers into panic, raised prices on American families, and forced emergency subsidies to clean up the mess he created?
Is it the decision to let tons of American-grown food rot in warehouses rather than allow it to be distributed to people who are starving—shipments that in normal years support our own farmers as well as our standing in the world?
Or is it the overarching pattern: chaos, harm, and a political style fueled by grievance rather than governance?
I’m not asking rhetorically. What domestic policy do you think reflects sound leadership? I’d genuinely like to hear which one, and why. Not just in concept but in process. Because from where many of us sit, the record doesn’t look conservative or Christian or even coherent. It looks destructive—both to the country and to the moral fabric that used to matter, especially in communities like ours.
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, Ca

To the Editor:
I’m genuinely glad you see the danger in Trump’s dealings with Ukraine. That matters. But I’m still trying to understand what you mean when you say you support him “on domestic matters,” because whenever I ask which policies you’re referring to, you never answer.
What exactly is it that you admire?
Is it the governing by insult, the late-night tirades, the lack of verbal discipline, the constant verbal chaos that keeps the country off balance? A senator is a loser, a representative is garbage, a journalist is a pig—and that’s just in the last week or two. What mature adult does that?
Is it the erosion of congressional authority, government by edict, as he declares emergencies, diverts funds, and treats checks-and-balances as inconveniences instead of constitutional obligations?
Is it his immigration record, which is loudly advertised but doesn’t match reality?
Deportations were higher under both Obama and Biden. What increased is lawlessness; it’s cruelty—ICE agents arresting U.S. citizens in “papers, please” sweeps, children pulled from parents, families scattered. And for what? What did that brutality accomplish other than trauma?
Is it the tariff whiplash, imposed without strategy, that sent farmers into panic, raised prices on American families, and forced emergency subsidies to clean up the mess he created?
Is it the decision to let tons of American-grown food rot in warehouses rather than allow it to be distributed to people who are starving—shipments that in normal years support our own farmers as well as our standing in the world?
Or is it the overarching pattern: chaos, harm, and a political style fueled by grievance rather than governance?
I’m not asking rhetorically. What domestic policy do you think reflects sound leadership? I’d genuinely like to hear which one, and why. Not just in concept but in process. Because from where many of us sit, the record doesn’t look conservative or Christian or even coherent. It looks destructive—both to the country and to the moral fabric that used to matter, especially in communities like ours.
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, Ca
***
To the Editor:
I’m still recovering from last week’s Editorial. While you are moving in the correct direction, you are avoiding the fact that the foreign affairs president is the same man as the domestic affairs president - unless he suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder (“split personality”). Single issue: “What are the domestic Trumpian policies that you support?” Let me offer a couple of options:
How about appointing a non-elected, unvetted, wildly eccentric man-child to descend on federal agencies, without first identifying agency problems and justifying the mass firing of federal workers, and enabling the greatest identity heist in history? Trump handed all our personal information to Nazi-sympathizer Elon Musk. Doubtless, a reward for Musk’s $275 million donation to the Trump campaign for the 2024 election. There is no known limitation on the use that the unscrupulous and testosteronic trillionaire can make of our private information.
Or fomenting conflicts to justify the invasions of federalized troops and military occupation of cities against the will of states’ governors and mayors, and states’ rights? How about violating a promise “to deport the worst of the worst” and instead rounding up quotas of anyone looking foreign or speaking Spanish, including American citizens and authorized residents, without Due Process and kidnapping them to other countries or to subhuman conditions in terrible environments?
Or the very concerning fact that Trumpian Republicans, supported by SCOTUS, have reduced voter rolls “in the interest of free and fair elections” without proof of measurable abuse, have tried to prevent mail-in voting, and have sharply reduced the number of polling places? Trump and his pernicious elves are using mid-term gerrymandering to reduce potential Democratic votes. In the 2024 campaign, Trump promised MAGA Truth Socials that, “You won’t have to do it anymore. It’ll be fixed; it’ll be fine; you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.”
An unconstitutional and dangerous military policy is the attacks on small boats at sea. More than 22 boats have been similarly attacked, but on September 2, a Venezuelan boat allegedly carrying cocaine (not fentanyl as originally claimed), with Europe a likely destination. Only Congress can declare war, so Trump’s self-declared “Narco-Terrorist War” by EO is a series of “military strikes.” Our government has offered no proof of its allegations but was recently forced to release video showing 4 strikes on the one boat: 1 killing 9 crewmembers, 1 killing 2 wounded survivors, and 2 to finally sink the boat. The stories get obscure, inconsistent, in Secretary Hegseth’s “fog of war.” Which is absurd when nobody is shooting back. “A warrior without honor is just a thug pretending that murder is heroic.” Remember My Lai?
Hegseth claims he only saw the first strike, insists he didn’t order Operations Admiral “Mitch” Bradley to “kill them all,” which would likely be an international crime. Post facto, Hegseth says he endorsed the “decision” of Bradley, who is now taking the fall in an attempt to wipe the blood off Hegseth’s hands. But what of those military who followed their Admiral’s orders? If they can’t trust that their commanding officer is giving legal orders, instead of operating at will, where does that leave them?” Remember the film, “Dr. Strangelove”?
In response to constituent inquiries, six Democratic former military or CIA officers quoted from the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), that the military cannot follow an illegal order. Trump condemned their “Seditious Behavior, punishable by Death” (all caps). “President Bone-Spurs” does not care about the UCMJ, or the First Amendment, and/or cannot read.
Then there’s the Epstein Coverup.
Same guy, Martin. Unfettered by truth, the Constitution, honor, insight, or a shred of empathy, as he always has been. Every other country in the world already knows what this guy is. The world will not forget. We will continue to encounter many more domestic challenges, and the continued loss of respect from other nations. We will be transcendentally lucky if we don’t reap what we sow.
It’s Trump’s/MAGA Swamp now, Martin. So, what administration domestic policies rate your support?
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca