To the Editor:
I endorse your position on Trump’s foreign policy, even beyond his betrayal of Central and Eastern Europe to Russia: his ham-fisted, arrogant “diplomacy” on Greenland, his gratuitously insulting treatment of NATO and our greatest ally, neighbor Canada, his invasion of Venezuela and kidnap of its president (and the day China decides the US President should be removed as a danger to it?), the murder of civilian boat crews on the open sea, his lurid threats to destroy a 4000-year old civilization, his fanciful status reports on Iran, and susceptibility to Netanyahu’s entitled, xenophobic, imperialistic dreams, all without consulting a docile Republican Congress.
You have withdrawn your support for Trump because of his failure to adhere to Judaeo-Christian principles in his betrayal of Ukraine, but only Ukraine. You have far lesser standards for the extermination of Iran, or Gaza, though innocent little girls, boys, and babies have died and will die in those conflicts, just as little Kristina was killed by a Russian missile in her country. Is there a relative value among children? Another perpetual mental disconnect is your pretense that Trump is two distinct people in foreign and national affairs. You just realized that Trump is indifferent to Judaeo-Christian principles in foreign affairs, but fail to recognize that he is just as immune in domestic affairs, as evidenced by his treatment of Americans needing food, housing, and health care assistance in this country for “fake affordability,” and USAID for desperately poor nations who now look to despotic nations for help, while billionaires get tax cuts and wildly increase the national debt. His and his family’s shocking corruption. His roundup of men, women and children for deportation, hardly “the worst of the worst” (the only “policy” I recall you supporting). His comments on the bombing of LA or San Diego, or ridiculing MAGA, as reported last week. Often Trump is just stunningly ignorant: tariffs. Trump preys on the religious for votes but spouts only manipulative piety. I privately emailed you a picture a few weeks ago of Trump portraying himself as Christ on Truth Social last Easter, taken down when real Christians vigorously objected. You had said you couldn’t forgive such a breach, but you apparently have. It can no longer be ignored. Intermittently over the last years, and now habitually in midterm campaigns, Trump enthusiastically comments on the manly physical attributes of Republican candidates. In GA, Senate candidate Mike Collins, ”is a good-looking man, and he’s all man. I’m not sure about Ossoff.. If I’m central casting, I like the big, strong guy…That’s what I want.” He also complimented Rick Jackson for being, “very handsome, distinguished, beautiful-looking guy.” Of Ohio’s John Husted Trump said, he “started examining” Husted, and praised his “ass,” hands, shoulders, and jawline.” Around military academies he goes gaga. He approves Hegseth’s bloodwork testing for testosterone levels in the miliary and possible supplements to keep troops “on the leading edge of lethality” (with no regard for long-term effects, but won’t insist on flu shots). Trump’s awed and descriptive first-term comments about Arnold Palmer’s genitalia still echo. It’s worrying, not because it could be a late-in-life tilt toward homoeroticism, or just an old man piteously mourning his own youth, but because The President of the United States appears to have no filter for his private thoughts, some of which surely relate to important or classified matters. People of achievement, grownups, have learned, in business matters, to keep most personal thoughts to themselves. Because his thoughts are almost uniformly about himself, Trump is uncaring or unaware of that his braggadocio is damning, that his failures of discipline and lust to appear a strongman are predictable and enlivening to foreign despots, and tragic for us. Our downward trajectory, nationally and internationally, accomplished in a mere two years, must be stopped soon if we ever hope to regain some of our status as a trusted nation and Beacon of Freedom. Meanwhile, our people need recognition that our economic woes are Real. We have the Constitutional means.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.