DEAR EDITOR:

As I watched the opening of the Olympics, I couldn’t help but think about how a free country should look. I saw happy, hopeful faces of athletes getting ready to compete against athletes from different countries, friend or foe.

I changed the channel and what did I see? I saw a city being invaded by a Gestapo-type Trump ICE, wearing masks, dark glasses to conceal their faces, handguns, and automatic rifles. This was a city in the United States of America, not Iran or communist China.

Once loved and respected throughout the world, now we’re looked at as unreliable, moving toward fascist-like authoritarianism. There is fear in the streets, schools and churches and at athletic events.

What do the MAGA Republicans see? Are not Matthew 25 and Isaiah 58:7-10 written in Trump’s leather-bound Bible, or yours? Is the dollar more important than your souls? Should the elephant representing the Republican party be replaced by three monkeys? “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”? History will write the outcome.

Listen, I hear chipping in the background. Is this the chipping away of our Constitution and democracy by the Republican administration and their insurrectionist, Trump?

Wait a minute, there’s more. An army of Trump’s ICE agents is being assembled at a price of 70 billion dollars. Will they be deployed to the election boards and election polling stations in the 15 states Trump accuses of illegal voting or are they being sent to harass those standing in line to vote?

In closing, silence is deafening.

JAMES R. COSTELLO

Warren