Letters: How could anyone describe Donald Trump's presidency as successful?
Conservative political activist Charlie Kirk stated that a major split among MAGA could 'disrupt our momentum and our insanely successful Presidency.' I do not know what world he lives in. I don't know of anyone who would describe Donald Trump's presidency in those terms.
Rather, I see and hear all but the few who are still trying to rally around this divisive, corrupt, inept, lying, felonious, cruel, finger-pointing, bigoted, sloppy man, to name only a few characteristics. I am feeling truly frightened and agitated. He has embarrassed and disappointed us time and again. He has created a nation and, yes, a world, of people who seem to have drunk the Kool-Aid but don't realize it.
Some of us cling to the thought of righting things again in the future — truly making American values a source of pride and leadership that bring respect and calm to ourselves and each other. Albeit, hope is waning. Projection abounds as some people point fingers and assign blame to others when in reality the blame belongs to those projectors. And they know it. They just dig in their heels hoping our existing president will actually deliver on something, anything, of which to be proud.
Supplying Israel with more money and arms ain't it, and under our watch, we contribute to wars and even more division among us. When are the followers going to recognize and admit to having backed the wrong horse?China relishes an Iran with nuclear weapons so they both can intimidate and dominate the Gulf States and the West to allow oil to freely flow to energy-dependent China.
The U.S. with Israel's help must forcibly neutralize Iran's Fordo underground nuclear site, thereby removing Iranian intimidation goals and starving China's oil hunger while giving the Iranian opposition courage to accomplish a regime change from within.
The world must not be threatened by the duplicitous and diabolical tyrants with nuclear weapons and a ballistic missile enterprise.Many voters backed Donald Trump in 2024 because he pledged to put 'America First,' believing he would bring peace through strength to the Middle East. Thus, it's hardly surprising that the incipient conflict with Iran has caused a rift within President Trump's base. Already many of the leading lights of the MAGA movement, both in and out of government, have broken openly with the president. Never before has MAGA looked so close to fragmenting altogether.
Iran is not currently in active pursuit of a nuclear weapon, which Trump's own intelligence chief, Tulsi Gabbard, reaffirmed barely three months ago. As such, the Iranian nuclear 'threat' should be seen for what it is: an almost comically flimsy pretext for military intervention.
In this perilous hour, our nation faces two vital questions: Will the perceived threat of a nuclear Iran really push Trump to war? If yes, will the American public go along with it?
There are many factors standing in the way of war at this time. For starters, the administration simply has not done the preliminary work needed to build support for it. When the George W. Bush administration decided to test conclusions with Iraq in 2003, it didn't simply announce plans to invade. It took months of convincing Congress and the public of the need for intervention, laying out the case and presenting intelligence and analysis (some of it, admittedly, inaccurate). No such effort is being made with Iran, despite the overwhelmingly negative public reaction.
The idea of sending thousands of soldiers into a country of 90 million people on the slim pretext of destroying a (mostly imagined) nuclear weapons program would be a tough sell even under favorable political and strategic conditions. In this particular case — with no clear war aims, no credible casus belli, and none of the preplanning and operational preparation required to mount an invasion — it's unlikely to fly with a war-weary (and war-wary) American public. The political will for such an undertaking simply is not there.
Should the Trump administration actually go through with a quixotic invasion effort, the cost in blood and treasure would doubtless drive a permanent wedge within the MAGA movement. The president must decide whether a war of choice is really worth the price of fragmenting both the movement he built and the support base on which he relies.Remember that time President Donald Trump shared highly sensitive intelligence with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the Oval Office? You can bet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remembers.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Netanyahu hid their plans for their recent successful military strikes against their adversaries from the U.S. president. Smart cookies.
Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un are 'smart cookies,' according to our kowtowing president. Now all the smart cookies will keep their plans of attack to themselves while our incompetent boobs share sensitive military strike details on Signal chat texts with their family members and a surprised Atlantic reporter.
Our president no longer wants the United States to be the world's leader in defending democracy. He's too busy dismantling ours (and golfing).I have worked for 50 years in rural Honduras, getting to know those whom President Donald Trump calls 'animals,' 'rapists' and 'murderers.' I fear that the president does not understand who these people are or why they come to our country. Most would rather stay home among family and friends. They cannot do so because American CEOs and politicians have together created trade policies that impoverished their country.
When I started working in Honduras in the 1970s, many rural people grew their own food, especially corn, selling surpluses to buy necessities. They were poor but relatively self-sufficient. There were few signs of malnutrition.
In 2004, Honduras signed on to the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), which promised expanded opportunities to sell Honduran exports in the U.S. Instead, the country was flooded with cheap U.S. government-subsidized agricultural products. Imported crops, including corn, were now cheaper than locally grown equivalents. Unable to compete, farmers lost their lands. The jobs available in multinational factories paid little and were too few to meet the needs of the growing number of displaced people. Currently, 63% of Hondurans live in poverty; 1 in 4 children younger than 5 are malnourished.
Unable to feed themselves or find work at home, Hondurans seek employment in the country whose trade policies impoverished them. Traveling north is dangerous. Since 1998, at least 8,000 migrants died on the U.S. southern border; more perished on the journey to that crossing. Those who made it live in the shadows, working low-paid jobs harvesting our crops, landscaping our yards and building our homes. Immigrants who are undocumented also commit crimes at much lower rates than citizens. One powerful reason is that they come here to earn money, most of which is sent home to support their families and keep their children in school. Committing crimes would only draw attention to them, speed their deportation and ruin their families.
Some immigrants do commit crimes. The great crime, however, is perpetrated by politicians and business leaders who created a system that greatly advantages corporations over people. That system drives immigrants northward not to cause us harm, but because they have no choice.
Blaming these new arrivals for risking all for the families is cruel and misguided.The media should be focusing on why Immigration and Customs Enforcement enforcers are being attacked. Could it be that the majority of Americans don't want inhumane treatment of those who are being apprehended?
ICE agents can mistreat those they arrest, but those who interfere with such type of treatment are subject to arrest?U.S. Rep. Jesús 'Chuy' García could not be more wrong in his stance on the remittance tax ('Trump's remittance tax is a cruel double-tax on immigrant's dignity,' June 19). If you earn the money in the United States, it should stay here and benefit our economy and our companies. Without this money, other countries would be forced to do better by their people.
We're not talking about a small sum. Remittances to just Mexico were more than $64 billion in 2024. Workers who come here need to come here because they yearn to be Americans, not just for using us as their piggybank. I believe it's one of the primary reasons we have so many immigrants who do not assimilate. They see the U.S. as a temporary fix for their financial troubles and never plan to stay in the first place.
The tax should be higher.This is in response to the letter from Dick DeForte ('Show soldiers respect,' June 20) in which he takes exception to the Tribune providing front-page coverage of the 'un-American' protesters on June 14 and Section 2 coverage of the Army parade of the same day. I was one of those 'un-American' protesters exercising their First Amendment rights in a peaceful manner.
I am an Army veteran, and I took great offense to President Donald Trump staging an Army parade that was nothing more than an ego trip for someone who avoided military service and who has nothing but contempt for the military.Today's political climate encourages extremism, both to the far right and to the far left, and neither functions well in our system of democracy.
Our nation was founded on compromise. It took until 1789 to adopt an acceptable compromise solution among the original states and then to build and adopt our Constitution. The only way it got done was through reasonable compromise between reasonable people.
Both our far right and our far left today regard their views as the only 'correct' ones for our nation, and they are so different that any compromise is unacceptable to them. This has developed into continuous swings and the attendant turmoil we have today. Neither side is doing any favors for our democracy.
What both parties need is moderate leaders and candidates who can work across the aisle and can compromise to come up with reasonable solutions to our issues. Ideally, both sides would experience equal discomfort with any resolution, but the majority of us would find it acceptable. Hopefully, we would also be more stable than today.
It's time for moderation. It's time to abandon the idea that your ideas are the only acceptable ones. It's time to recognize the foundation of an effective democracy and begin working together to find reasonable-compromise solutions.
Our democracy depends upon it.In my opinion, America was always . Our new directive should be 'Make America .' When you think about the majority of people in the United States as being middle class and lower class, our goal should be to make life for the ones who are part of the growth we've already experienced. This group is the reason why we can produce what we do already.
Part of this success has been global trade and immigrants who bring their own talents and personalities to the American table. America is like a mural in which each piece creates a mosaic that is unique in the world. Keeping that mural from disintegrating means affordable housing for all, sustainable wages, and global empathy and compassion, and keeping the world safe through research, communication and environmental security. Everything will fall into place, and all those pieces will become even more beautiful and .
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