Understanding Donald Trump’s Appeal

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To the Editor:

Bret Stephens’s Jan. 14 column, “The Case for Trump, by Someone Who Wants Him to Lose,” is a brilliant summary of why we may be about to elect a buffoon with enough baggage to sink, one would think, anyone similarly freighted who aspired to high political office.

Millions of Americans are unhappy, frightened and angry. Privileges long taken for granted, like good housing and the chance for decent employment and advancement, are fast fading away. People want change! And the demagogue’s madness speaks to that need.

The same old, same old posture of the Democratic Party does not. What happened in 2016 is happening again, as once more someone from the old guard comes face to face with someone embodying the desperate fury of millions of people.

It is indeed, as Mr. Stephens so eloquently stated, time for those in the liberal establishment to pull their heads out of the sand. Thank you, Mr. Stephens, for sounding the alarm.

Paula Chernoff
Vancouver, Wash.

To the Editor:

Bret Stephens makes a good case that Donald Trump was and is right on out-of-control illegal immigration to the United States, that the response to Covid should include a balance of concern for health, the economy and child education, and that many middle-class working people resent “liberal elites.” Visceral reaction to this, however, should not cloud Americans’ voting judgment.

Mr. Trump was and is dangerously wrong about weakening NATO, which threatens the security of our country, and dangerously wrong in dismissing climate change, which threatens the security of our planet.