Seventy days (plus a few hours) until the election, with something like the “real” campaign beginning, these thoughts arrive from readers on how the nation, the party, the press, and others reckon with the reality of a candidate Trump.
1. Asking about torture. A reader suggests a line of questioning:
Why don’t journalists ask Trump surrogates to address Trump’s repeated view that he would advocate torture and killing of families of known terrorists? This seems as abhorrent as any of his positions. Maybe I have missed it but I have never, for example, heard a reporter ask Pence whether he supports this extreme position at odds with basic tenets of civilized behavior, Geneva Convention, rule of law, the reason why we fought WWII, etc.
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2. Why the Berlusconi comparison is so useful. An American reader who has been in Europe writes:
I was in Spain this past week, where the collective question about the U.S. political campaign can only be translated as “WTF?” While I am not familiar with members of the entire political spectrum in Spain, my acquaintances are generally shocked at the recklessness and the intellectual vapidity of one of our leading political candidates.
Spaniards tend to respect the U.S. Even those who view the U.S. as a malign force think of it as an incredibly capable country filled with smart (if misguided) people. Mr. Trump’s success is not something they can easily reconcile.
I write that as a preamble to my response to the Black Trump Supporter who chastised you for your coverage of Trump. [JF note: It was from a man named Jamie Douglas, here.] In criticizing your coverage, he points out problems afflicting America and African Americans, in particular. He makes some valid points about the relative (a term to be stressed) success of Black Caribbean and Nigerian immigrants compared to African Americans with long family histories in this country. Smarter people than I will engage on this point. I will only point out that his observations are not reasons to support Donald Trump. They are, at best, reasons to punish Democrats and to “stick it” to those Blacks with whom you’ve disagreed over the years. [JF: I assume this is the impersonal “you,” like on in French or “with whom one has disagreed...” in English. Rather than meant for me!]
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