To the editor: Kudos to columnist Jackie Calmes for listing her top 10 reasons not to vote for Donald Trump. But it’s not only the former president who doesn’t deserve our votes; it’s the whole Republican party.
By its cult-like blind allegiance to Trump, the Republican Party has forsaken its legitimacy. Voters can deliver a reckoning on this party’s irresponsibility by defeating its candidates soundly.
Many Republican policy positions — on healthcare, women’s right to choose, foreign affairs, immigration, even the future of democracy — do not reflect the will of the American people. On the climate crisis alone (an unfortunate omission from Calmes’ list), voting for Trump and other Republicans threatens a safe and healthy future for humanity. The disease, death and destruction caused by burning coal, oil and gas is becoming catastrophic and irreversible.
Until Republicans get serious about the critical issues that Americans care about, they don’t deserve our votes.
Robert Taylor, Santa Barbara
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To the editor: OK, I get it. We have a problem at the border, and grocery prices are too high. But the tariffs proposed by Trump will only increase the costs of goods coming into our country and will cost us more when we buy what we need.
The inflation rate is 2.4%, and unemployment is at 4.1%.
However, the biggest threat we face is the continued assault on our democracy. If we are not careful, the next election will bring us a dictatorship, and then we might not be able to freely voice our complaints.
Please set your priorities correctly so we can keep our democracy and then fix the country’s other problems.
Maurice Cayne, Westlake Village
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To the editor: I believe Trump will be elected in a close race.
I read op-eds about how Trump will wreck democracy. Not so fast. Congress, the Department of Justice, the military and other institutions have ways they can mitigate or even stop a Trump dictatorship.
My pressing question is this: Will we?
How bad must his second term become before enough is enough? Russia invades Poland? The economy tanks due to tariffs? Tax breaks for the rich, again?
We will recover from the chaos and maybe learn to listen when a con artist tells you he’s a con artist.
Loring Olk, Phoenix
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To the editor: Perhaps Calmes can now give us critical-thinking independents her 10 best reasons to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.
Her interviews have been shallow with only talking-point answers that revert to blaming Trump for this nation’s problems.
Carolyn Helmuth, Costa Mesa
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To the editor: For all the evidence of Trump’s continuing mental deterioration, he remains an electoral strategy genius.
Knowing that his fitness for office constituted a mounting (if unspoken) concern among the MAGA masses, Trump devised a backup plan to placate them. He selected a running mate who manifested three critical qualities: ardent Trump loyalist, more well-spoken than Trump and decades younger than Trump.
Placing Sen. JD Vance on the GOP’s ticket thereby quashed most Republicans’ worries. They know well that if reelected, Trump’s overarching priority will be to derail multiple criminal cases filed against him.
Once he fends off those prosecutions, he needn’t burden his mental faculties by serving four years. He can resign part way through this term, secure pardons from the newly installed President Vance and retire comfortably to Mar-a-Lago.
Then, Trump’s youthful, capable acolyte can finish out his term and position the GOP for electoral success in 2028. Whether Harris’ attacks on Trump will prove effective is most doubtful.
P. Jane Weil, Sacramento