To the Editor:
I have made no secret of my disdain, fear, and loathing for Trump as president. It’s irrelevant to the fact that he claims to be a conservative Republican. Conservatism is a healthy ingredient in a democracy. As has been noted before, today’s Trumpian Republicans are not conservative. They are radicals who found a home in the GOP and flipped it MAGA.
As with Hunter Biden, I have reached a point where I feel something akin to pity for Trump. He has, like Hunter, reached a near-parody of public self-destruction. Last Saturday the former president explicitly trumpeted what he has implicitly demonstrated for years. He called for the scrapping of our 250-year-old Constitution if necessary to restore his lost presidency.
What precipitated this treacherous statement was that, during the 2020 presidential campaign, Twitter apparently removed tweets that featured nude photos of a clearly inebriated Hunter Biden. This news caused Trump to re-bleat his outrage at the results of the 2020 election.
Censorship and technology are serious issues, as is the attempt to keep deliberate misinformation from the public square. But Trump’s thesis is that Twitter violated the First Amendment by not re-publishing on social media what some would call pornography. What was the public interest in seeing such personal squalor?
When the middle-aged son of a presidential candidate is addicted and possibly emotionally ill, is it relevant to the election? True, it did deny Trump the chance to exploit the obviously troubled adult son of rival presidential candidate Joe Biden. Clearly, Hunter needs serious and sustained professional counseling, but there is no First Amendment right to view his genitals.
"So, with the revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech Companies, the DNC, & the Democrat Party, do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great 'Founders' did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!"
Cautious pity is appropriate for this level of deluded egomania. It is a window on Trump’s contempt for the Constitution, and a magnifying glass on the truth of the Trump-induced seditious insurrection at the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore