The Times compared Trump’s first weeks in office to a “trainwreck.”
Erica Verrillo, of Whately, MA, responded:
“You say, ‘Nothing prepared us for the magnitude of this train wreck.’
“I would like to point out that Trump himself amply prepared for this phenomenal train wreck.
“Didn't anyone notice that he had thousands of lawsuits filed against him? Or that he cheated students at his bogus university? Or that his casinos broke rules and racked up fines? Or that he had a long, long history of shady business dealings?
“Not to put too fine a point on it, but did anyone notice that he was completely unqualified for the job of president of the United States? How could anyone have expected anything less than an unmitigated disaster?
“And didn't anybody read "The Art of the Deal," in which he laid out his strategy as clear as day? "I play to people's fantasies," Trump wrote. When a businessman plays to people's fantasies and fails to deliver, that's fraud, not hyperbole. When a president does it, that is also fraud, but on a grander scale — one that can lead to a war.
“’It’s difficult to know whether he actually can’t distinguish the real from the unreal — or whether he intentionally conflates the two to befuddle voters, deflect criticism and undermine the very idea of objective truth,’ you wrote.
“Given Trump's history as a con man and a huckster, how can there be any doubt that he knows exactly what he is doing?”
Here are a few paragraphs of “California Fights Back.”:
“When Donald Trump threatened on the campaign trail to deport every single immigrant living in the country illegally, bring back offshore drilling and reverse the anti-pollution policies that help clear smoggy skies, Californians immediately understood that our state would be disproportionately affected — and disproportionately harmed — by the reckless policies he was hoping to enact.
“After he was sworn in, he went further, singling out the state for attack. ‘California,’ Trump declared in February, ‘in many ways is out of control.’ In one overwrought tweet, he suggested that the federal government should cut all funding for UC Berkeley because a protest against a conservative guest speaker had turned violent. A few days later, he declared — even more irresponsibly — that he would ‘defund’ the entire state if he felt it wasn’t cooperating sufficiently in his efforts to root out undocumented immigrants.
“Trump had already alienated many state voters with his plans to build a costly and unnecessary border wall, revoke the health insurance of millions of low-income people and gut climate-change policies. Now, he was taking on California itself, a state in which more than one out of 10 Americans live, and which sends more than $350 billion to Washington each year in federal taxes (and gets substantially less than that back). A state with strong progressive values that it will not happily see undermined.
“To express their dissatisfaction, hundreds of thousands of people gathered at rallies in the state’s major cities. One man’s quixotic California secession campaign became a cause célèbre. And California’s political leaders vowed to fight back.
“For the next four years, we must cooperate when it is possible, but fight back when it is necessary in the interests of our state and the union to which it belongs.”
California Fights Back
