Letters

It has been one year since the election of Donald Trump to a second term of the presidency. Within my limit of 450 words, I have listed below an abbreviated review of what is not normal for an American president, as the whirlwind of choices Trump has made have blurred the boundaries of normalcy.

• It is not normal for a president to send military or National Guard to American cities when there is no crisis, just because he feels like it.

• It is not normal for a president to condone terrorizing people and arresting them because they don’t look Caucasian, and to ask questions later about their citizenship.

• It is not normal for a president to humiliate and berate people by calling them names and acting as if they are subhuman because he doesn’t like them.

• It is not normal for a president to lie to the American people about facts and statistics. The megaphone of the president is just too large, and people believe the president.

• It is not normal for a president to pardon a bitcoin mega-millionaire after that person has made a $2 billion investment in his family company.

• It is not normal for a president to gratuitously give important and consequential jobs in their administration and the cabinet to unqualified, incompetent people. Such decisions have consequences for the American people and the functioning of our government.

• It is not normal for a president to use the Department of Justice to get revenge on people just because they be behaved in ways he doesn’t like.

• It is not normal for a president to hide the truth about a serial child predator, thus preventing those who engaged in the crimes with him to be brought to justice.

• It is not normal for a president to gratuitously bomb boats out of the water and kill those in the boats because he says they are narco terrorists, while refusing to show any evidence that that is true.

I suggest that the reader continue this exercise, because I believe as Americans we are at grave risk of accepting abnormal behavior as normal behavior, and that is extremely dangerous.

Paula Angelone

Southampton