Pray for our president

Dear Editor,

Evangelicals who wince at some of the words our president uses need to take stock. Should the passion and energy spent on critiquing be better put into prayer for the man God has in office and studying the Bible?

Consider: King David, small in stature, committed adultery in “office,” killed many in war and had one murdered, and was a seemingly passive parent of his children by multiple wives — two of whom attempted to usurp his kingship. Yet, he was widely popular.

While benefitting from many of our president’s policies, do we hold his language to the standard of a squeaky clean Sunday school teacher? Do you know of any with his business acumen, ability to function on little sleep and to hold the attention and adoration of many? Yes, and admiration.

The anointed King David did not need to be elected. Please. Let’s count our blessings, pray for our president, and perform our civic duty.

Lysbeth Farnsworth,

Kane

Leadership in denial

Dear Editor,

The White House press secretary recently stated that “Science should not stand in the way of” schools reopening fully this fall. Similarly, Vice President Mike Pence stated that “We don’t want CDC guidelines to be a reason why people don’t reopen their schools.”

Think about this for a moment, marveling at the insanity of it. Is not our science-based understanding of this virus and strategies for best managing it the only thing which can show us how to reopen schools safely?

Or should we instead go with denial, magical thinking, and toxic positivity when it comes to the lives of our children?

So, just as President Donald Trump bullied businesses to reopen quickly in order to get the economy going again (and thus to improve his re-election prospects) — despite warnings from medical experts that doing so too quickly and without adequate precautions in place on a nationwide basis would inevitably backfire — he is now pushing for our schools to do the same.

And with this, he is recklessly putting our nation’s children, teachers and support staff at risk.

Of course we all want this pandemic to be behind us, with businesses and schools fully open and functioning again, and everything back to normal. But our current reality now includes this coronavirus, and we cannot make it go away by wishful thinking or turning a blind eye and pretending it is gone, as Mr. Trump seems to be trying so hard to do.

His denial and minimization of this challenging reality facing us is now taking on delusional proportions, and his disinformation efforts intending to persuade us all to join him in this happy fantasy is becoming progressively more dangerous.

Given his diagnosable sociopathy and malignant narcissism, anything that might help him to achieve his goal of re-election is paramount, and as long as the costs of doing so do not directly affect him, he does not care.

Facing failure (being a “loser”) would be intolerable to him, and so he soothes himself with endless self-praise (while requiring such praise from this around him) regarding his “leadership” through this pandemic (which here on Earth-One is shaping up as a historic and epic failure), and will risk the lives of our children without hesitation as long as it serves his own needs.

Surely America and her children deserve better leadership than this.

Dale E. Buonocore

Warren