Dear Editor,
The man (no surprise there) last elected to the presidency of the US:
Had been associated with certain bankrupt corporations.
He said that the last president had falsely claimed that he was a natural born American.
He said a judge born in the US of Mexican heritage could not fairly judge a case in which he was a party.
He ridiculed Senator McCain, a veteran and prisoner of war ‒ a veritable American icon ‒ implying he was a loser.
He ridiculed a disabled journalist.
He paid 25 million dollars to settle a lawsuit based on the allegation that he defrauded students of a university controlled by him
He said that he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue, and continue to receive the support of his followers.
He refused to produce his income tax returns, a practice followed by all presidential candidates, at least since Nixon.
He described a Federal Judge with whom he disagreed as a “so-called judge”.
When he was a younger man he boasted that as a celebrity he had the licence to sexually assault women.
He insulted women regularly describing at least one as a pig.
He insulted the parents of a man who died fighting for the country.
He verbally abused every opposing candidate in the worst possible manner, both in the primaries and in the election.
He refused to acknowledge a foreign country hacked the email of his opponent in the election.
He is acknowledged on the basis of substantial evidence to be a serial liar.
He has refused to liquidate his assets, that would make breaches of the constitutional emoluments clause more likely.
Many of his cabinet appointments do not appear to reasonable observers to be made in the best interests of the country.
He said that climate change is a hoax invented by the Chinese to gain an industrial competitive advantage over America
He promised to build a wall on the Mexican border and require Mexico pay for it without giving any reason why they should or how he would enforce the payment plan.
He has diminished the National Security Council, and is trying hard to diminish the media and the courts.
He has given the distinct impression that he sees no problem with white nationalists if they could help him to gain or retain power.
He has done and said so many rash things that some people wonder about his sanity.
Apart from asserting without evidence that America has been outsmarted in all its trade agreements and other economic policies by the rest of the world, a state of affairs he has vowed to correct, he has not offered any policies that can reasonably be seen to be in the interests of the poor; yet his victory is credited to the belief that poor and lower middle income people have in his ability to improve their economic circumstances.
Surely there are more logical, though less benign explanations for his success which no one seems prepared to acknowledge. Clearly we are witnesses to the successful operation of an incredibly brazen bully, and no one seems capable of preventing it from running its course.
Yours faithfully,
Romain Pitt
