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Letters to the Editor: Trump proved his incompetence long before the coronavirus made us all pay for it

Trump news conference
A member of the Secret Service wears a surgical mask as President Trump arrives at the White House Rose Garden for a news conference.
(Brendan Smialowski / AFP-Getty Images)
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To the editor: Historians will one day look back at this pandemic and wonder how the party that produced Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan sat in silence and watched the total incompetence and shameful conduct of the Trump administration. (“Trump’s new 2020 message — it’s not my fault,” May 8)

Instead of expressing outrage, the lapel-pin patriots sat silently while President Trump trashed our allies and groveled at some of the worst the world had to offer. Emperor Caligula is alleged to have wanted to make his horse a consul. The 21st century equivalent is Trump putting ineffectual family members and cronies into positions of power. Instead of honesty when we most badly needed it, we got rants about him being a victim who was not responsible for anything.

But my friends on the left shouldn’t be too smug. With their absurd insistence on political correctness, they contributed to an environment where Trump’s rants seemed more relatable. Instead of believing that every alleged victim needed to be heard, they acted as though every alleged victim needed to be believed. The result was the circular firing squad we have now.

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We’re reaping what we have sown. With more than 85,000 people dead from COVID-19, the economy in ruins and our place in the world undermined, the Republican Party still lacks the moral fiber to call out the president. We still have a chance to make it better — not right, only better. If we reelect Trump, this country will be forever changed. Those of you who say voting doesn’t matter, think about your 85,000 dead fellow Americans.

Peter Del Re, Long Beach

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To the editor: Trump has the power to mobilize forces to fight COVID-19. Off course, he could take personal credit for all of it. He could be the hero of a generation for avoiding a pandemic. It would guarantee his reelection.

Instead, he has promoted false cures, tacitly encouraged citizens to act unsafely, denied responsibility and lied. Sadly, as this failed president commits political suicide, Americans are actually dying.

Michael Gross, Woodland Hills

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To the editor: I have been trying to comprehend our country’s inability to come together in this pandemic. I am left with one word as a reason: politics.

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Everything is now viewed through the lens of political affiliation — science, “truth,” business, guns, the courts, beauty parlors, face masks, vaccines, restaurants, healthcare, elderly care, you name it.

I hope that we might take a breath and acknowledge that we have more in common than this political divide suggests. Values of family, community and country should bind us in aspiring for a better nation and a better world for all.

Randy Sandford, Oxnard

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To the editor: The president’s allies talk about the pandemic as if everything was fine until they got hit by a meteor in March. This just is not true.

Members of the president’s own staff warned him starting in January that a dangerous pandemic was coming. The only thing not foreseen was Trump’s ignorant intransigence and inaction in the face of this danger.

Through it all, Trump’s main concern has been the stock market. He has failed to see the connection between people’s health, their livelihoods and the health of the economy. He has failed to understand that his sworn responsibility is to the American people and the Constitution, not the stock market.

Trump is entirely responsible for this.

Barbara Snider, Huntington Beach

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To the editor: President Trump should order a new sign for his desk that says, “The buck stops there.”

Jill Klein, Pasadena

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