Dear editor:
When the idea for choosing presidential candidates through the political primary method was begun, I was all for it. After this past year, when GOP primaries served up to us our current president, I am not so sure any more. The old "smoke-filled room" of yesteryear is looking better as every day passes. There is no way that the Republican Party's smoke filled-rooms of yesteryears would have put on their ticket such a presidential candidate as Donald Trump.
What is so difficult to understand is that those GOP leaders, who would have been in a smoke-filled room, are now following a man that they would never have chosen to nominate in the first place. There is something very wrong here! What is so terrible is that we are all stuck with him until either he is impeached and removed from office, resigns or is indicted and brought to justice in a court of law, which according to constitutional experts can be done.
What's the president up to, not doing or trying his best to hide? First, he is up to his neck in a new scandal every day. One such scandal is when he hosted representatives of Russia's dictator in the Oval Office, where he naively bragged to them about firing the director of the FBI and stopping an investigation into their (Russia's) meddling in the presidential election, which he called a "hoax." Of course, these Russians already knew about their meddling. No wonder the Russians were laughing during their visit. They were laughing at Trump. All the show of merriment was released by Russian media sources, seeing as our American media was not allowed to document the meeting. That was in May of last year.
Last week, after 13 Russian nationals were indicted by the special prosecutor for multiple crimes against the United States, the president will still not speak out to defend our country. He simply says that the indictments prove that he is not guilty of anything. These indictments are lodged against Russian actors, not their American enablers.
President Trump continues to show his childishness, immaturity and mental imbalance by making everything always about him. He still will not admit that the Russians standing next to him in last year's May meeting in the Oval Office had anything to do with interfering in the presidential election.
Recently testifying before a senatorial committee, Christopher Wray, director of the FBI, said that the president has not issued any directive to protect America's electoral process in the midterm congressional elections. Why is Trump silent? Director Wray said that the FBI is acting, without a presidential order, to try and stop Russian meddling in the 2018 elections.
We Americans are facing a national crisis. Will we allow our democracy to be gnawed away by Soviet-style rats? We must take action in the next election and vote the Republican Trump enablers out of office, both locally and nationally. This may be our only hope.
John S. Polk
Hot Springs
Editorial on 02/24/2018