To the Editor:

Martin, you appear more deeply invested in the possibility of WWIII, or defending Trump’s endless lies, than you are in
what we can do in our country to preserve the Constitution as we face powerful changes in the world. You avoid discussion
about House Republican votes endorsing Trump’s plan to control elections, or to dismiss the Courts as an equal branch of
government, but you rhapsodize about Bill Buckley at length. In fact, Buckley and Gore Vidal fully deserved each other. We
can discuss later Buckley’s borrowed caution not to “immanentize the eschaton,“ which laughably made my point about his
condescending bleats.

Jean, I can’t be certain where you get your information, but you and Martin are incorrect that George Floyd died of a
fentanyl overdose. If you Google the subject, you’ll find that the 20-page Medical Examiner’s autopsy of George Floyd
concluded that his death was a “homicide,” caused by “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual,
restraint, and neck compression.” Why is it important to you hold Floyd responsible?

In Trump’s eyes, his wins are always “huge,” “massive,” or “mandates,” while his losses are due to “cheating”, “fake news,”
or “persecution.” The following are final Federal Elections Commission (FEC) official popular vote percentages, for
comparison to 2024:

2024 Trump beat Harris by 1.5% (49.80% to 48.32%).

2008 Obama beat Romney by 1.4%;

2012 Obama beat McCain by 7.3%;

2016, Trump won the electoral college, but Clinton beat him in the popular vote by 2.1%;

2020 Biden beat Trump by 4.4%.

1984 Reagan beat Mondale by 22.2%, a true “massive” blowout and mandate.

Trump has never had a mandate but, somehow, some in MAGA choose to believe what is unsupported by the facts. He lies,
except when he wants to slip something by us, and then he tells a truth so outlandish that some insist it’s a joke. “I will
be a dictator on day one.” MAGA laughed at the hyperbole. Oh, sorry. He said “only” on day one, and that was the lie.

On Memorial Day, Trump gave a startling, smarmy speech about ultimate military sacrifice, he who has called them “suckers
and losers,” and has asked, “what was in it for them?” Once again, he launched another self-pitying monolog on his “stolen
2020 election” (the courts, including SCOTUS, disagreed), and referred to former President Joe Biden as a “decrepit
corpse.” It was an insult to veterans on a day of honor, a pointless and cruel invective of a former president, a
steroidal version of a teenaged Mean Girl masking some personal wound or insecurity by traumatizing others.

Trump has no purpose to unite the country for our common good. He has no intention of respecting our Constitution. His
objective, like so many dictators over time, is to be the sole source of Law, Policy, or Fact, colloquially known as a
“dictator.”

We are beyond politics and are, instead, facing the real chance that mere assertions of authority will be fact, that lies
are truth, that ludicrous ideas are worthy of impassioned defense because they come from Trump, and that we will self-
immolate our 250-year-old Constitutional Republic. Benjamin Franklin said, “We have delivered you a Republic, if you can
keep it.” Post-WWII Russia always said that America would destroy itself from within.

Kelly Scoles,

Fillmore, Ca.