Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

Democrats are trying to win their third consecutive presidential election. How often has a party won at least three consecutive presidential elections? The answer is seven:

• 1800-1820, Democratic-Republican
• 1828-1836, Democratic
• 1868-1880, Republican
• 1896-1908, Republican
• 1920-1928, Republican
• 1932-1948, Democratic
• 1980-1988, Republican

The American people don't like dynasties. Even if Donald Trump weren't a much better candidate than Hillary Clinton, he would have an edge. It's time to throw Democrats out of power for at least four years (and preferably eight).

I had a good month abike: 18 rides in 31 days; 591.8 miles pedaled; an average of 19.0 miles per day. Today's 34.2-mile ride was enjoyable, though it was exceedingly humid. The heat index was 100º when I left the house and 97º when I returned. I've now pedaled 4,194.2 miles in 2016. My goal is to break my all-time mileage record of 6,205.9 miles, set in 1990.

[T]he range of alternatives students should be invited to consider, though not limitless, needs to be wide. Liberal-arts education is not catechism class. Students should not simply be presented with officially approved views—even if they are the right views. I want my own students to consider seriously a range of possibilities, including some—Marxism, for example—that I think are not only unsound but also reprehensible, and whose record in human affairs is a record of death and abomination. I certainly want them to hear the profound arguments advanced against Marxism by people like Friedrich Hayek, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and John Paul II, but I also want them to understand how it was that Marxism could have attracted the allegiance of many intelligent and even morally serious (if seriously misguided) people. I want them to know the arguments Marx and his most intelligent disciples made. In fact, I want them to consider these arguments fairly on their merits. The task of the liberal-arts teacher, as I envisage it, is not to tell students what to think; it is to teach them to think . . . carefully, critically, and for themselves.

(Robert P. George, Conscience and Its Enemies: Confronting the Dogmas of Liberal Secularism, American Ideals and Institutions Series, ed. Robert P. George [Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2013], 35 [ellipsis added])

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Deroy Murdock doesn't understand the Never Trumpers, such as his National Review colleague Jonah Goldberg (but including William Kristol, George Will, Stephen Hayes, and Bret Stephens). They're pure and unsullied, unlike Donald Trump. They have rock-solid conservative credentials, unlike Trump. They're sophisticated, unlike Trump. They're well read, unlike Trump. The Never Trumpers are elitists, plain and simple. They despise ordinary, everyday, hard-working Americans. They want the votes of these people, to be sure, but that's all. What these idiots don't understand is that the only alternative to Trump is Hillary Clinton, who will destroy everything they value. The way I see it, even if you hate everything about Trump, including his policies, you should support him (by, among other things, voting for him) because he is all that stands between us and another Warren Court.

To the Editor:

Re “Blacks Beg to Differ With Trump’s Depiction” (news article, Aug. 25):

When Donald Trump told African-Americans that our schools “are no good,” we “have no jobs” and we are in danger of being shot, a group of golfing buddies and I were waiting for a table at a restaurant in Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard. Doctors, lawyers and bankers, we sat at the bar and looked at the TV and we just laughed.

I do not claim to speak for African-Americans as a whole, but Mr. Trump has no idea what he is talking about. Mr. Trump would do well to avoid painting blacks, Hispanics or any other group with a broad brush. Just as Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel is far removed from the Mexican criminals whom Mr. Trump often highlights, most African-Americans are not dodging bullets every day and praying that our children survive failing schools.

ROLAND NICHOLSON Jr.

Oak Bluffs, Mass.

Note from KBJ: It's good that Roland Nicholson Jr doesn't "claim to speak for African-Americans as a whole," because he most certainly doesn't. Perhaps he should talk to Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, officials of the NAACP, officials of the Urban League, and members of Black Lives Matter, who have been claiming for years that blacks are oppressed, victimized, bullied, impoverished, and sick. Donald Trump is simply pointing out what everyone (except Roland Nicholson Jr) knows.