To the Editor:

That was some fancy avoidance footwork last week. I’ve still got that list of Trump’s breathlessly bromantic utterances about the world’s worst dictators. He entertained and lavished despot-love on one last week, Viktor Orban of Hungary, who he declared is a “strong” and “great leader” because “he says ‘that’s the way it will be’ and that’s the end of it.” We got rid of our last king.

Your delusion that America was created as a Christian Nation is peculiar because the signers so clearly refused to do so. While all or most of the Founding Fathers (FF) were Christians, they specifically prohibited the new government, in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, from establishing a state religion.

The sole reference to Christianity in the original Constitution indicates the date of the signature of the document “on the seventeenth day of September, in the year of our Lord 1787,” a common closing in official documents at that time. The Constitution also states that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” Forget the silly thing about St. Augustine.

The anticipatory glee of MAGA evaporated at the State of the Union (SOTU) last week. President Biden made a “pow! pow! pow!” case (Peggy Noonan) for his reelection in an energetic and cogent report of the country’s foreign and domestic standing and a plan for a second term, and verbally skirmished with hecklers. Later, Trump riffed erratically for two hours in personal attacks on Biden but with little policy discussion. He again ridiculed Biden’s lifetime stutter to demonstrate that he is still that playground bully who lives to torment others so that his own weaknesses will not be discovered. Too late. But some people apparently like bullies.

In the post-SOTU Republican rebuttal, Senator Katie Britt (R-AL) was unintentionally hilarious as she practiced her repertoire of cute/scary mom faces in her kitchen while she scolded the president and lied at least once. “Longtime GOP operatives, right-leaning pollsters, conservative Capitol Hill staff, MAGA lawyers, and even some senior members of Trump's own 2024 campaign absolutely torched Britt's absurdly over-dramatic rebuttal.” It was a hoot.

Trump installed his daughter-in-law Lara as co-chair of the RNC who immediately declared that all resources would be used to “reelect Donald J. Trump,” i.e., a new Trump legal defense fund! Forget down-ballot candidates, he is the only one who matters. The RNC will become Trump’s personal piggybank and, since “everything Trump touches dies,” only cobwebs will
remain.

Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.