Letters to the Editor: Sadly, we’ll be dealing with Donald Trump long after Jan. 20

To the editor: After Jan. 20, Donald Trump will be the same amoral person he’s been since before he was president. He may face criminal charges in New York state once he loses the immunity of the presidency. (“Who will Trump be when he leaves office?” Opinion, Dec. 4)

He’s been crooked for a long time and will remain so. Like the leopard, he will never change his spots.

A staggering amount of the people around him have been convicted of crimes. He also owes a lot of people a lot of money, and it’s not clear he could make good even if he wanted to.

His impulsive and scandalous behavior is driven by a primal urge to avoid paying the piper. It’s worked for him his entire life. Why should it stop because he is no longer president?

Bunny Landis, Oceanside

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To the editor: I disagree with columnist Virginia Heffernan that “Trump without the office of the presidency is just Trump the meme.”

His ambitions and demagoguery will continue and he will resort to unscrupulous ways to achieve his goals as he has done all his life. Many ignored the warnings leading up to the 2016 election and made Trump the president anyway.

We must find a way to reach out to his cultish supporters to help unite this country. It will not be easy, but I believe President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will be able to do this.

Varini de Silva, Huntington Beach

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To the editor: Before there were the rappers cited by Heffernan who wrote about Trump, there was Woody Guthrie.

He wrote “Old Man Trump” in 1954, which begins, “I suppose that Old Man Trump knows just how much racial hate he stirred up in that bloodpot of human hearts.”

Guthrie was writing about Fred Trump, the president’s father. Too bad it was never recorded by Guthrie, because it might have informed a few minds about Fred Trump’s racist housing practices and discriminatory rental policies.

It might have changed history enough so that his son would never have become president, only the “emperor of nothing.”

Genie Saffren, Los Angeles