Sunday letters: Trump, Biden as dictators; weakening faith in voter integrity; Palestinian statehood

The existential choice for voters in 2024

Will American voters in 2024 choose for president a 77-year-old twice-impeached, disgraced former president, who is a racist authoritarian sexual abuse fraudster facing 91 felony charges; a misogynistic bigot who incited a violent, deadly insurrection in the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn a free and fair democratic election; a man who has called for the “termination” of the U.S. Constitution; a man who has suggested the extrajudicial execution of U.S. General Mark Milley and of people who commit minor crimes — including shoplifting; a man whose hateful speech mimics the rantings of Adolf Hitler; a fool whose common sense is so lacking he proposed injecting bleach to cure COVID-19; an aging pathological liar and narcissist who is slipping cognitively and has said he defeated Barack Obama in the 2016 election and that Joe Biden will lead us into World War II; a man whose increasingly fascist rhetoric and anti-democratic plans for his second presidency has caused highly-respected conservative Judge J. Michael Luttig — among many others — to warn that, “Donald Trump is a clear and present danger to the United States” and to cause a recent editorial in The Economist to be titled “Donald Trump Poses the Biggest Danger to the World in 2024”?

Or, will Americans choose incumbent President Joe Biden, 81, a hard-working, honest man, who has served 36 years in the Senate, eight years as vice president and four years as president and who has tripped on the steps to Air Force One and misspoken a couple of times?

As a television pundit said recently, “Yes, Joe Biden is old, but Donald Trump is old and crazy.”

Gordon Rowley, Wakefield

Democrats ending democracy

They say if you lie enough with conviction it becomes the accepted truth. That’s exactly what the Democrats are doing with Trump and with him bringing an “end to democracy." When in fact, that's exactly what the Democrats are doing! Let’s just try and review a few facts.

It is President Biden who has decided not to enforce the current immigration laws and to allow uncontrolled immigration. It is Biden who has decided what type of cars are in our future, gas or electric. It is Biden who is doing away with what type of household appliances we can buy. It is Biden who is prosecuting Christian churches. It is Biden who is attempting to take away parents' authority on bringing up their own children.

It is Biden who is promoting abortion on a federal level, rather than leaving it to the states as the Supreme Court ruled. It is Biden who is end-running Congress on military support to Ukraine and Israel. It is Biden who refuses to hold press conferences. It is Biden who says boys can be girls and girls can be boys.

It is Biden who is using the FBI and DOJ as political weapons. It is Biden who is adding thousands of IRS agents and arming them. And maybe, the most serious, it is Biden who is supporting keeping Trump out of the election process by all means possible. Those are the actions of a dictator. The list goes on.

This, my friends, is the slippery slope Biden and the Democrats are leading our country down. And this is the true end of our democracy.

John E. Anderson, North Scituate

Secretary of state out of touch with RI voters

In the wake of the recent statewide fraudulent voter signature scandal in the CD1 race, currently under investigation by the attorney general and fresh on the minds of Rhode Island voters, Secretary of State Gregg Amore vows in 2024 to push for changes to the R.I. Constitution that will further weaken confidence in voter integrity. He proposes same-day voter registration and no minimum residency requirement (“New ideas on state officers’ wish list,” News, Dec. 31).

The article presents a question to readers: “How do you feel” about Amore’s proposed changes? I feel his attempt to eliminate our Constitution’s safeguards, created to help protect voter and election integrity, are not in the best interest of voter integrity but, rather, in the best interest of his party’s political agenda.

Maria D’Arezzo, Cranston

US must back Palestinian statehood

The Israeli-Hamas war is a war of futility. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu falsely believes that eliminating Hamas will solve the current conflict. He fails to realize that Hamas represents the spirit of Palestinian resistance, which he cannot crush and will perpetuate if nothing changes.

It should be pretty obvious by now that something has to change. The one-sided foreign policy favoring Israel has to be scrapped if progress is to be made. Giving Palestine statehood would be the first logical step if peace is to be achieved.

It’s high time the U.S. acts in its own best interest and supports this plan which will cost nothing in dollars.

Richard Chretien, Pawtucket

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Sunday letters: Trump, Biden as dictators; weakening faith in voter integrity; Palestinian statehood