To the Editor:

I will not attempt to answer your Editorial last week because I’m afraid I left Kings Leonidas of Sparta and Xerxes of Persia in my HS freshman ancient history class.

I take exception, however, to your vile statement that Biden and “his radical liberal cronies are evil people.” You are plainly an acolyte of the late, unlamented Limbaugh who assigned moral standing to political parties to appeal to his needy and resentful audience and thereby collected millions. You can’t just disagree, you excoriate, condemn, and invoke moral judgment on political “unbelievers.” Note: “My beliefs or the highway to hell” is not a principle of a Democratic Republic.
You and other MAGA followers, despite the growing revelations of Trump’s mental, emotional, and legal decay, remain steadfast in support.

Some love Trump for what he represents for possibilities of success, revenge, and retribution. Some, having supported him in the past, are afraid to reject him even after revelations of the dark underbelly of his character because they cannot accept having been wrong. Some reject, as presidentially disqualifying, evidence of Trump’s lack of morality, integrity, his threats of violence against individuals and institutions, and of criminal and civil charges, because they, like Trump, hold that anyone who calls them out or disagrees with them is corrupt, crooked, or on a “political witch hunt.”
Some like you, Martin, are energized when religious beliefs are symbiotically joined with political identity so that political opposition is not just wrong, but “evil.” Intrinsic feelings of racial superiority, misogyny, sexual and gender hostilities, and persecution often accompany this belief. Some Christians view Trump as a prophet or messiah, a “Cheeto Jesus,” and are attracted to political strongmen or religious autocrats who will validate their social, political, and religious beliefs and enforce them onto others as “the norm.”

Some, as we saw on January 6, just want to “watch it burn.”

Consider an incident which occurred after the latest Carroll verdict which granted an additional $83.3M in defamation damages against Trump following a sexual assault. Before Trump left the defense counsel table, he turned to Robbie Kaplan, Carroll’s attorney, and said, “See You Next Tuesday.” She had no idea to what he was referring. Later, her staff explained that his statement is one used by insecure, ill-bred teenaged boys. The phrase is an unprintable misogynistic slur understood by the phonetic sound of the first two words, adding the first initials of the last two words. Last Saturday, Trump asked social media if he still “looked like Elvis.”

Such is the character, mind, and dignity of the “messianic” leader of the Republican Party.

Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca