All hands on deck to defeat Trump

Donald Trump attempted to overthrow our democracy. He is an adjudicated sex abuser. He has told tens of thousands of fact-checkable lies. He’s a bully who exhibits cruelty, bigotry, misogyny and racism. He has proven himself to be corrupt and authoritarian. He has chosen cronyism over competence. He has stolen top secret documents. He has helped steal women’s freedom to control their own bodies. He has rejected science and history that didn’t suit his agenda. His former staffers wrote Project 2025 just for him. He has embraced white supremacists and Christian nationalists. He’s a conman and a felon and a sociopath who has quoted Hitler in his speeches and aspires to be a dictator. He is unfit and unwell, and independents, centrists and the left must unite to defeat him. All hands on deck. 
David A Sorensen
Duluth, Minnesota

Time to send the clown home

In this election season, we have been inundated with ironies and absurdities.  When you roll your eyes at the political clown show, you are not alone.  Here is a small collection of some of the most striking malarkey.  
We see enemies of “big government” and “government overreach” leading the efforts to have government regulate reproduction and health care for teenagers, basically putting the government in every bedroom.
In fact, we note that many who are now willing to tell others what they can and cannot do with their bodies are the same ones who shrieked at the “outrage” of being asked to take simple public health steps – wearing masks or getting immunized – during the pandemic.  
We see “originalists” on the Supreme Court who apparently are blind to simple constitutional phases such as “A well-regulated militia …”.  How many deaths can be traced to our justices’ failure to read those four words?
The introduction of “alternative facts” has now morphed into a full blown “alternative reality,” and has even progressed to having the personal psychotic journey of a presidential candidate presented as “truth.”  This bizarre parallel universe features immigrants eating pets, assertions that magnets do not work underwater, and praise for Hannibal Lecter.

We note that leaders who claim to be horrified by millions of criminals and mental health patients flooding into the U.S. as illegal immigrants – wait for it – arranged to kill a comprehensive bipartisan bill that would have strengthened border protections. 
We hear assertions that millions of illegal aliens are voting, when the absolutely last thing that undocumented people want to do is to come into contact with government in any form, especially if that contact will require them to provide proof of identity.  
We see millions of hard-working Americans needing a spokesman and advocate, but supporting a corrupt, amoral billionaire with a lifelong history of screwing his employees, contractors, and associates.
Recently, MAGA pundits have been deriding Walz’s 24-year military record while failing to ask “what about Trump’s military record?”  Mr. Bone Spurs did not go to Vietnam, or anywhere else where there was a whiff of duty or danger.  
Of course, hypocrisy and double standards abound. What would MAGA pundits make of Kamala Harris if she had 5 children by 3 different spouses? And what if she was caught on tape saying that when a woman is powerful, she can grab ‘m by the nuts?
The shrill screams of “stolen election” (the Big Lie) are coming from the candidate and the party that embrace voter suppression, gerrymandering, purging of voter rolls, shortening the window for voting, and dozens of new laws at the state level to make it harder to vote.
And the evangelicals – scorning the “love thy neighbor” principles of the New Testament, scorning the Good Samaritan, embracing a “prosperity gospel” – are still calling themselves Christians.
Hopefully after November 5 we will move on to more sane, sober and serious discussions of the issues that we must face together.  The alternative would be discouraging.   
Charles Gessert
Duluth, Minnesota