To the Editor:

Martin, I apologize. As you know, I had planned not to write another LTTE until after the election. However, I watched the Trump Rally in Madison Square Garden, and I cannot contain myself. The Trump Party was on full display, and it was heartbreakingly racist and disdainful of American citizens.

The warm-up “comedian” at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday shockingly reflected Trump’s well-known racism and crudity. Tony Hinchcliffe remarked that “Puerto Rico is a floating island of garbage” (Trump having already deemed our country a “garbage can”) and observed that many Latinos were present. His statements about “these Latinos, they love making babies, too.” What followed I will not repeat but the point was that their presence is an invasion. It was meant to convey passive-aggressive contempt (“it’s just a joke!”). Hinchcliffe laughed about cutting up watermelons with his black friend, and about Jews loving money. It was sickening. MAGA laughed and cheered.

As usual, Trump denied knowing the “comedian,” so refused to apologize, though some of his horrified staff did. We all know he lies, anyway.

The rally was an explosion of toxic masculinity, crude and aggressive. Trump’s mantra of “Make America Great Again,” came sharpy into focus as “Make America Masculine Again.” The NYT described it as “a carnival of misogyny.” One speaker referred to Harris’ staffers as “pimp handlers.” Trump knows that he’s losing women as they fight for their, and their sisters’, rights to control their own bodies, so he is pumping up aggrieved young men who feel denied their male birthright of (white) power (a big issue with Steve Bannon). So, order must be restored and society “returned to normal,” where men have complete control. And everybody knows and remains in their place.
It was stunning, then, to also see how Trump cavorted on stage with Elon Musk, congratulating him for firing anyone who tries to join a union at “X”. “He’s just so great!” exclaimed Trump. The very men to whom Trump implicitly promises their control birthright are the same ones he would fire if they struck for higher wages, and he has admitted to firing employees who were needed for overtime. Trump is anti-labor and MAGA seems not to recognize the hypocrisy.

For the first time in our history, a former president requires immunity to escape presidential criminality. A convicted felon for fraud, an adjudicated rapist, twice-impeached, a grossly crass man who disrespects other races and women, a liar of near-mythic status, who will bend to a “bad neighborhood” dictator who might hurt him, who was indicted for stealing Top Secret US documents, who considers the Constitution optional if it doesn’t deliver his will, and shows increasing evidence of dementia. Notice the hungry, glittering eyes of JDVance as it progresses.
The Wall Street Journal quotes the International Monetary Fund’s prediction that the US will grow 2.5% in this last quarter over last year, the fastest growing economy [Biden/Harris] among the other wealthy nations, due to stronger consumer spending boosted by rising real, or inflation-adjusted, wages, and largely restored the economy after the devastating Covid recession (and more to do).
The Choice.

Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.