DEAR EDITOR:

His welcome speech to King Charles had the oratorical clarity and grace of an eighth grader. It reminded me what an embarrassment 47 is on the world stage. He won’t get better enabled by the former GOP, on stage in his grandiose ballroom surrounded by his masked secret police. Given the lack of a spine in Congress, it’s up to us to vote Trump and company out before then.

He’s costly in both blood and treasure. He started a war with Iran sans strategy or allies. So far, he has won the deaths of nearly twenty of our service members and injuries to hundreds more. He ignored the advice of people smarter than his cabinet (a low bar) and was shocked when Iran closed Hormuz and charged tolls for passage. He has been unable to strike an effective nuclear monitoring program like the Obama administration negotiated and he tore up.

At home, $35 won’t fill the tank of my four-cylinder sedan. Independent truckers go broke for hundred-gallon diesel fills. At the supermarket, $75 bought some ground meat, cereal and a few veggies; good thing our kids, now men, are on their own. We’re retired seniors blessed to have been employed in good jobs when we worked. So now, we get to pay taxes on our Social Security, pensions and RMDs from our 401Ks. We will not recoup our tariff taxes, but we earned a couple hundred bucks on Ohio refunds and a one-time deduction from the Feds that resulted in fewer thousands in year-end payments than usual. What small businesses paid in tariffs dwarfs my loss. Next year’s expenses for ballrooms, wars, self-proclaimed monuments to the convicted felon and his bag of waste, fraud and abuse administration will likely cost more.

So, VOTE, but not for someone who says they’re “fighting for you.” That’s politics 101 junk. Vote for someone who tells you how they’re going to change what, before their term is over, to begin cleaning up the mess Trump and his lackeys have wrought.

JIM CARTWRIGHT

Canfield