By saying he fell asleep during President Barack Obama’s speech, President Donald Trump showed not only meanness but ignorance. He would have done better to have listened closely to Mr. Obama’s perceptive remarks and learned something from them. Reading Mr. Obama’s words as quoted in your article (Sept. 8, “Obama Issues Scathing Critique of Trump, ‘Politics of Fear’”), I felt a breath of sanity and patriotism return to the national dialogue.
However, I think Mr. Obama thought long and hard before he reluctantly spoke out because of the long-held tradition for a past president not to discuss the current president, and he finally felt compelled to do so because our politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, for the most part, haven’t shown the courage or will to speak truth to power. I find that very disheartening. We need heroes.
I’d like to add that I wish Mr. Trump would stop saying “drain the swamp,” and “witch hunt.” Swamps are environmentally necessary for the planet’s well-being, and draining them was, and still is, usually done for profit by big businesses. “Witch hunts” were a horrible practice of mob rule. In many cases, they were caused by men wanting to cheat widows out of their land, by someone wanting to get even with someone for a perceived insult or from fear of a harmless person who was eccentric, none of which applies to Mr. Trump.
HELEN WILSON
Squirrel Hill
