To the Editor:
Re “Trump Threatens to Use Force in Major Cities” (front page, July 21):
What goes into the formula that President Trump used to send federal forces to Portland, Ore.? Portland has a Democratic mayor. The governor is a Democrat, as are the two senators. Any objections by these Democratic officials will fall on deaf ears in Mr. Trump’s America. The president says “New York and Chicago and Philadelphia and Detroit and Baltimore” could be next because they are “all run by liberal Democrats.”
The president does not treat the coronavirus as the enemy. He does not treat Russians who may have paid bounties for the lives of American soldiers as the enemy. The enemy is the Democratic Party, and the only war that moves him is the election.
There is only one way this war against our citizens can end. Republicans must speak out now. You have the only voices the president can hear. Your silence is deafening.
Elliott Miller
Bala Cynwyd, Pa.
To the Editor:
In a different era, President Lyndon B. Johnson federalized the Alabama National Guard to protect protesters after John Lewis and others were savaged by the police. Over the objections of state and city officials, Mr. Trump has decided that his election fortunes may improve if he foments violence by federal officers in Portland. He threatened to do so in Chicago and elsewhere.
Portland mothers tried to form a ring of protection. If Mr. Trump’s forces again threaten, let us all form rings of righteousness: doctors in white coats, clergy in garb, firefighters in helmets, vets in uniform, members of Congress with lapel pins, and, yes, unarmed police in uniform. “Good trouble,” as Mr. Lewis would say.
David Rosmarin
Newton, Mass.
To the Editor:
Sending jackbooted unidentified federal forces into cities is not designed to actually restore order. It’s a tactic to reinforce President Trump’s law and order campaign theme — a desperate grasp to reverse his downward slide in the polls.
These cities do not have a protester violence problem. What they do have, along with their brethren in small towns and rural areas throughout the country, is the most serious life-threatening health crisis in 100 years. If instead of sending club-wielding federal forces to fight a manufactured crisis Mr. Trump put the resources and sense of urgency behind developing a federal response to the coronavirus, we would all be shopping for school supplies now.
Nancy Roberts
Baltimore
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
