America is an experiment in governance with the goal of making it a place where everyone has equal opportunity to thrive, without regard or constraints with respect to race, religious belief, gender, age, political party or financial condition. It is an attempt to create a place where the very best of human behavior is reflected in its laws and social structures: A place where honesty, compassion, facts and character are valued. A place where no one lacks access to education, medical care, safe food and water, shelter and a living-wage job. It has the potential to be that “shining city on a hill” that President Ronald Reagan liked to refer to. It is hard work. It requires an informed electorate and a principled media.

Trump has made significant progress in destroying our positive evolution toward that shining city on a hill made over our 250-year history. The government we now have is not the government the Founding Fathers envisioned, but it is what they feared could happen if an unprincipled person were to gain the office of president.

The America I cherish is better than what Trump has created and what his character has proven to be. The America I cherish does not destroy families over immigration status; increase the release of toxins into our air, water and food so that companies make more profits; withdraw funds that keep rural hospitals operating; support a tax code that further enriches billionaires at the expense of the vanishing middle class; close down research grants that have the potential to save lives; destroy the environment for monetary gain; and start wars that can be averted by negotiation.

The president I can respect does not weaponize government agencies for his own pleasure, break laws, use the power of office to enrich himself, his family and his friends, terminate vital government personnel that keep us safe from natural or adversarial challenges, seek to imprison people who disagree with his policies, destroy historically important national buildings, attempt to hide our real history, and speak lies with nearly every utterance.

I work to have such a president be elected in 2028.

Dorothy S. Crafts
Eugene

Have something to say?

Send us a Letter to the Editor. Read our guidelines for Letters to the Editor here.