Letters to the Editor: The radicals on the left don’t compare to the racism on the far right
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- Readers challenge Jonah Goldberg’s both-sides framing, arguing today’s GOP is captured by a white nationalist wave under Trump and lacks internal leaders willing to confront entrenched racism.
- One letter says Trump’s repeated attacks on “communism” deliberately tap Cold War-era fears, seeking reflexive support from older voters rather than a serious debate over capitalism and democracy.
- Another writer points to core features of fascism — racial purity, cult of a strong leader, silencing opposition, glorifying violence — and contends Trump and the MAGA movement increasingly fit that description.
To the editor: Columnist Jonah Goldberg somehow misses the era we are currently in (“The right and left need to control the radicals in their own parties,” July 7). The Republican Party has been captured by a white nationalist wave fueled by an egomaniac president.
The Republicans refuse to criticize President Trump for his sharing of racist tropes about the Obamas. The continued firing of qualified women and people of color in federal agencies has barely raised a whimper in Republican circles. To compare this handful of democratic socialist candidates to the current racism that drives the extreme right of the Republican Party is to confuse apples with oranges.
There is no John McCain, Mitt Romney or Nelson Rockefeller who will stand up against the new Republican Party that takes its lead from the states of the Old South. The policies of the current GOP are about cultural and religious grievances. This Republican president refuses to accept he received 7 million fewer votes than Joe Biden.
Instead of trying the whataboutism argument, we need to question how the party that produced the Bushes has become the darling of all the religious and white nationalist conspiracists.
Rene Childress, View Park
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To the editor: In reading Goldberg’s column on the need for both parties to call out their own radicals, I had to nod in agreement. But I think Goldberg missed an opportunity to examine Trump’s repeated references to “communism.”
Trump isn’t doing it to compare and contrast it with capitalism, as he makes no effort to warn of the pitfalls of the former and the virtues of the latter. No, the reason is much simpler: fear.
Tens of millions of Americans grew up during the “Red Scare” years, doing air-raid drills in school and having to know where the nearest fallout shelter was located. We weren’t told that communism wanted to supplant capitalism as the dominant economic system. We were told the communists wanted to destroy us and our country.
That sort of indoctrination doesn’t wear off with age. Trump is intentionally seeking to stoke fear in older voters. He doesn’t want a discussion of nuance. He wants a knee-jerk response that drives voters to Republicans.
Robert S. Martin, Pomona
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To the editor: Among the defining features of fascism are the belief in a unified, racially homogenous national identity fixated on perceived decline or victimhood; government that centers itself around a powerful leader as opposed to a constitutional system of checks and balances; the effort to vilify and eliminate political opposition and to control the media; and the glorification of military strength and violence.
One does not need to be a “radical leftist” to see what is happening in our country under Trump and the MAGA movement. It’s fascism. Full stop.
J. B. White, Ojai
