America weeps

Dear Editor,

It has been both heartbreaking and terrifying to watch as this second President Donald Trump administration has forcibly warped our once great nation over this past year into the dark shadow of its malignantly narcissistic and sociopathic leader, twisting it to serve his insatiable ego-driven need for power, wealth, and blind obedience through the use of threats, fear and cruelty.

But then, as some of you may already know from experience, this is what such individuals do. They have no capacity for empathy or shame, no moral center, believe that they are above existing laws and norms, and see others as there only to serve their own needs. And so we are now witnessing what is termed “narcissistic abuse” on a global scale, at a level “like no one has ever seen,” as we bully, threaten, and even invade neighbors and former allies, who now look upon us in stunned horror as a danger to world stability.

And thus the “American Dream” is becoming more of a nightmare.

Here at home, vital services for helping the poor and the working class are being brutally cut, the cost of living continues to rise, healthcare is taking huge hits, corruption is happening right out in the open, and Trump and his ultra-wealthy buddies are getting even richer. Do you ever wonder how much wealth would ever be enough for these people?

In addition, our tattered democracy is being reshaped into an increasingly authoritarian state, now with a huge, masked and lawless government-sponsored terrorist organization (answerable only to Trump) out on our streets, demanding obedience and recklessly enforcing his will. Although such efforts were supposedly targeting “the worst of the worst” among undocumented immigrants, its scope has now broadened to include whomever Trump chooses (including American citizens), with nothing even resembling due process — and detention, concentration camps, deportations, kidnappings, violence, and now even murder viewed as acceptable outcomes for the sake of “national security.”

Echoes from the late 1930s Germany are now becoming rather deafening to anyone who knows about those dark times.

As a retired clinical psychologist, I feel compelled by my ingrained “duty to warn” responsibility to note once again (along with many other mental health professionals) that having such an individual in a position of such great power is an extraordinarily toxic mix, presenting a clear and present danger to both our nation and the world.

We are living in dangerous times, teetering on the brink of the abyss.

Massive, relentless, and peaceful protest combined with the upcoming mid-term elections provide a time-limited opportunity to start really turning things around. However, the damage which could be done before then is frightening, and the possibility of him manufacturing a reason to cancel those elections is quite real — indeed, he has already been talking/”joking” about doing so.

So it now falls on us to do what we can to restore America to its status as “that shining city on the hill” and “the leader of the free world.” Remember those days? It seems so long ago, doesn’t it?

History is watching, as is the rest of the world. May our 250th birthday prove to be a rebirth of the American dream, and not its final chapter.

Dale E. Buonocore,

Warren

Threat to U.S.

Dear Editor,

Trump Derangement Syndrome has now metastasized into the Democrat Socialists of America who seem to have only one agenda: destroy America. How do I come to this conclusion? From New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s own lips: “We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”

I interpret this as “the loss of individual freedoms to the collective enforcement of group think or face impoverishment and/or imprisonment.”

In my opinion this open aggression against American values and freedoms. The most disturbing thing of this malicious intent is that nearly half of the country, made up Democratic Socialists of America members and many Liberal Democrats, has bought into this authoritarianism willingly for a loaf of bread and a pound of flesh. Is this really what the Left thinks is the value of the soul of this nation?

Dennis L. Atwater,

Russell