Opinion: An ambitious ruler defeated by his own hubris: Shakespeare had Donald Trump down.

To the editor: We all are living our own Shakespearean drama: a flawed character has successfully ascended to the ultimate power that he so dearly sought. However, victory is taking on an increasingly bitter taste as the very traits he used to achieve his goal are sowing dissension. (“Trump lashes out, calls Russia investigation a ‘witch hunt,’” May 18)

All this, while his entourage wears itself to a frazzle, scrambling daily to turn dross into gold: that is, to transform yesterday’s lie into today’s fact. And his entourage may be turning on him — who can it be who dares leak? Could it be Stephen Bannon — not Cicero — who “looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes”?

So President Trump flails about, steeped in self-pity while hurling accusations. But the cause of his angst is not the Democrats, the media or even those awful leakers. At the end of the day it’s Trump.

Trump being himself — which is what created antagonists and poisoned the presidency — is what, in the best Shakespearean manner, is doing him in.

Barry Berkeley, Culver City

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To the editor: Trump said last week, “No politician in history, and I say this with great surety, has been treated worse or more unfairly.”

I am arranging a debate between Trump and the ghost of Abraham Lincoln. The judges will be the ghosts of Thomas D’Arcy McGee, Pierre Laporte, James Garfield, John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and William McKinley, all politicians who were assassinated.

As the moderator, I have to be impartial, but I predict Trump will not fare well.

Ian Cameron, Brentwood Bay, Canada

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To the editor: Trump is “boxed in” and harassed by the coincident efforts of the judiciary on the immigration question; the FBI and simultaneous investigations by Congress on the Russia and leaking questions; the Democrats in trying to obstruct the establishment of Trump’s administration; and hostile media that try to undermine the president’s creditability.

These are the tactics of an establishment politic. It is heavily buried in the swamp. It is coincidentally in league with formidable globalist interests to defeat Trump’s vision to bring jobs back to the United States.

Otis Page, Arroyo Grande, Calif.

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To the editor: Trump complains that he is the victim of a witch hunt. That may be so, but it is because he is the only person to have ascended to the presidency with no understanding or interest in our Constitution, laws or history.

Trump couples his ineptitude with wild lies. Some of them are laughable, like his obsession with the number of people at his inauguration. Others are reckless and dangerous, like his voter fraud claim because he does not want people to believe that Hillary Clinton received almost 3 million more votes than he did.

In an effort to make himself look better and with no evidence to support that claim, he strikes at the very heart of our democracy. May the “witch hunt” continue.

Kathryn Russell, Long Beach

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To the editor: A letter writer believes Trump did not obstruct justice because he only told then-FBI Director James Comey that he “hoped” that an investigation would be let go.

Don’t phrases like “I hope,” “I wish,” or “It would be nice if” carry the full force of a command when uttered to a subject by the king or to a government employee by the president?

Rex D. Walker, Los Angeles

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