A confederacy of dunces

President Trump is eliminating affirmative action programs to make sure that people are hired based on their merits. Also, in the name of meritocracy, he has chosen a man with a total of 2 years of government experience to be Vice President. For the head of the Dept of Defense he has chosen someone who never rose above the rank of National Guard major. To run the newly-created Dept of Government Efficiency he has chosen someone with no government experience. To be the Director of National Intelligence, he has chosen someone with no background in intelligence, nor any experience as an executive. To lead the Dept of Health and Human Services he has chosen someone with no credible experience in healthcare or medicine. To lead the Dept of Education he has chosen a person with no background in public schools. For the head of the Dept of Homeland Security, he has chosen someone with no experience in border security, transportation security or counter terrorism. And to oversee Medicare and Medicaid he has chosen someone with a long career based on pseudo science, and no government experience. Long live the meritocracy! 
David A Sorensen
Duluth, Minnesota

So, you voted for an asshole

It was a slight majority of voters nationally (49.8%) who lifted Donald J. Trump to a second term as President of the United States. Regrettably, Trump voters were convinced he was the better choice despite the daily turmoil and mismanagement of his first term in office. Donald Trump’s political success has been based on degrading everyone who opposes him and elevating himself as the savior. The truth of the matter is his success is part of the “art of the con.” To the extent you could call it success, his life story is based on deceit and treachery. He stiffed students who fell for his snake oil promises at Trump University, reneged on paying small contractors who worked on his failed casinos and left a trail of unpaid campaign debt with cities that hosted his rallies. He defrauded New York on his taxes, assaulted women, and defamed person-after-person. This is the person many of you voted for as president. You knew better and still voted for a man whose has no business in the White House or any position of power. He should be in a federal or state penitentiary instead of behind the famous Resolute desk.

Somehow you convinced yourself the economy was better under the former president than President Biden. This belief persisted despite record low unemployment and month after month of record-breaking stock growth. But you based on your support for political change on grocery prices and Biden’s inability to control the impulses of Israeli leader, Benjamin Netanyahu. As fate would have it, Donald Trump will not be bringing down grocery prices, especially now that he plans to institute a 25% tariff on Mexico and Canada and deport migrant farm workers and laborers. My guess you are not going to sign up to work for $5.00 an hour to pick vegetables in the blazing hot sun in Arizona, California, Texas, or Florida. Likewise, it seems unlikely you will hear the siren call and sign up to work at an airport, hotel, or slaughterhouse. These are jobs filled by the very people Trump and his entourage are trying to demonize and deport. Unless you are Native American, you were also an immigrant to this country. Maybe you need a refresher trip to Ellis Island and the Statute of Liberty in New York to appreciate your roots.

Why would you believe a man who spews lies like the rest of us breathe? According to the New York Times, Donald Trump told a public lie every day straight for 40 days in his first term in office. This man said he had never heard of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. The Democratic Party made Project 2025 a central part of their convention and repeated it at stump speeches throughout the country. However, that was not enough to convince you to read it, look it up or to believe it was anything other than a Libertarian pipe dream. It is now clear that Project 2025 is Trump’s blueprint for retribution and permanent power. He has filled his administration with Project 2025 stooges, who are busy trying to dismantle our almost 250-year experiment in American democracy.

The enablers in the Republican Party have supported this man and his criminal actions since day one. Mitch McConnell and his Republican-led senate did not have the courage to remove this man from office when he black-mailed Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, into digging up dirt on his political opponent, or when he supported the violent insurrection of January 6, 2021. The attack on the U.S. Capitol led to the death of five police officers, injured 174 others and cost an estimated 2.7 billion to investigate, compensate and restore physical damage. Nonetheless, one of the first king-like edicts Trump issued pardoned all 1500 convicted January 6th felons. Congressman Stauber, who claims to be a “back the blue” kind of guy responded to questions about this logic of this policy by saying the outcome of the election was an endorsement of these pardons. Well, Congressman Stauber, it is clear you are just another Republican minion who is too afraid to stand for anything. How do you square Trump’s blathering about rounding up hordes of immigrant lawbreakers with the idea of releasing 1,500 violent January 6th criminals into our midst?

Unless Donald Trump has a medical episode or mental collapse that renders him unfit for office, we are stuck with his deliberate chaos, cruelty, and incompetence. If you voted for Trump, you have a special obligation to do everything in your power to protect your fellow citizens from his cruel policies. Rich men like Elon Musk and Donald Trump have never needed government. They can buy whatever they need in the form of expensive homes, health care, clean water, food, and favorable government policies. Working people and the poor need government to level the economic playing field and to protect them from the ravages of predatory capitalism. If you have a challenging time figuring out which party best represents predatory capitalism, then it might be time to change your sources of information. You have been lied to by the right-wing disinformation machine for far too long.
Lee Fredericksen
Nomadic visitor, part-time Hawaii resident