To the Editor:

Martin, I hope you are writing The Great American Novel in your spare time, because it would be a shame to let your prodigious imagination be limited to mere Editorials. You do want everyone to practice your Old Testament Christianity and enforce it with laws (against same-sex marriage, parents’ choices for their children, women’s reproductive rights, suppression of studies of racism, etc.) no matter their personal beliefs. You vilify Putin, forgetting that Trump servilely compliments him at every opportunity, and you believe “depraved” Liberals are not qualified to govern in this democracy (shades of Limbaugh). Your talent is at its apex when you claim that Trump’s values are Judaeo-Christian. Just sayin’, fiction is clearly your genre.

Recently, Trump addressed “my beautiful Christians” to urge them to come out in droves for the coming election, but advised, “You won’t have to vote in four years, because the country will be fixed, and frankly, we won’t even need your vote anymore.” “Fixed” is outlined in Project 2025 on voting rights. Republicans everywhere were disbelieving, shocked, or made pathetic excuses. Google it.

Trump implied he would leave office voluntarily after four more years. “I did last time. I keep hearing… “he’s not going to leave” [see above].” Trump did not leave voluntarily at the end of his term. He instigated an insurrection against the certification process, still claims he was cheated, and is now saying that there won’t be a need to vote after 2024. He again called to purge dissenters from the Republican Party.

At the National Black Journalists Association last week, “macho-man” Trump at first refused to go on stage unless they agreed not to fact-check him (they declined), objected to “nasty” questions from “rude” female journalists who raised his past racial statements, questioned VP Harris’ racial heritage, and was pulled off early by his team when he began to implode.

Trump’s trash-talking America extended to the Biden Administration’s achieving the release of Americans and other prisoners in Russia. Biden managed to get allies to agree against their own interests in the negotiations. Trump lost his chance for that predicted “favor” from Putin and responded with his usual non-statesman like petulancy, and the MAGA House responded with a demand for yet another hearing. Meanwhile, Trump has refused to debate Harris on ABC as agreed.

Bullies often self-soothe by inflicting derogatory names on their opponents, but Trump has failed to stick one to VP Harris. For now, it’s her “low IQ” and her “cackle,” her full-throated and strong celebration of enthusiasm and mirth in laughter. She has optimism and hope for the country and our democracy (like FDR, JFK, Reagan, Obama, and Biden).

But Trump knows that, unless he can sell his base a menacing, apocalyptic view of our future without him, distrust and dismissal of their fellow Americans, and dispense with democratic processes like voting, the MAGA Plan will not succeed. Hope, optimism, democratic commitment, and laughter are the last things he can handle.

Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.