A poor choice

To the editor:

Joan Didion wrote brilliantly about the unraveling of America in the 1960s. The attempted assassination of Donald Trump is one more example of a polarized America unraveling in this decade. The country faces both domestic and foreign crises. This assassination attempt, however horrible, changes nothing.

First, Donald Trump by his actions as president and by his continued divisive and unspeakable rhetoric is clearly unfit to serve another term in the White House. He presents an unprecedented danger to representative democracy. The New York Times last week reported that the Trump-controlled Republican Party and its allies are trying to restrict voting and have plans to disrupt the certification of the incoming president should Trump lose the election.

Second, Trump’s opponent at the moment is President Biden. Biden, his family, close advisors and Democratic supporters in Congress apparently are fans of Marx, as in the Marx Brothers.  “Duck Soup,” the brothers’ classic anti-war film, should give the Biden administration a message about its dangerous, militaristic foreign policy (see also the militarization of the border). It’s based on a hypocritical rules-based international order that spells American primacy. In the film, Chicolini (Chico) tells Mrs. Teasdale (Margaret Dumont), “Well, who ya gonna believe me or your eyes?”

Tens of millions of Americans saw with their own eyes in real time the first debate, witnessing the cognitive decline of Biden. After the debate, a New York Times/Siena College poll found 74 percent of voters believe Biden was “too old to be an effective president.” The media has reported that his physical and mental decline has also been observed for months by other politicians and donors who have had personal contact with the president.  Biden has defiantly refused to withdraw from the race. He’s going to “finish the job.”

This choice of Trump or Biden reflects a bankrupt political system.

Howard Elterman