Letters to the Editor: We the People are the ‘losers’ in this political charade

We’re the losers

Sen. Rand Paul‘s comments in his Jan. 16 The Hill interview vividly illustrate all that’s wrong with American politics. He stated that senators had already made up their mind about the impeachment trial making a mockery of the oath of impartiality taken that day. Moreover, he commented that any Republican voting to impeach the president would end their political career. Mr. Paul has admitted publicly that he and other elected officials have superseded their sworn service to country, Constitution, and the American people with loyalty to party and personal gain. This behavior is reprehensible and only emboldens the president and others like him to behave even worse. Perhaps the United States is not in eminent danger of a mass resignation of the legislative branch and cabinet in deference to the president as recently happened in Russia for President Vladimir Putin, but it sure appears we are one step closer to dismantling the checks and balances our forefathers put in place to protect our precious democracy. “We the people” are the big losers in this dangerous political charade.

Neal Dornbusch, Lexington

His character shows

Try as I might to develop a fondness for President Donald Trump, I have failed. Part of the reason, beside his constant lying to the American public, his obscenities, his disdain for history of the office of president, his dependencies on cronies who like him know nothing about government, is a press conference where he is seen mocking a reporter with a disability.

There is an old German proverb: “People show their character by what they laugh at.” Anyone who laughs and mocks a physically challenged person is unfit for the office of president of the United States.

William E. Ellis, Lexington

Double standard

What was the imminent threat that was posed by Osama Bin Laden, whom President Barack Obama bragged about killing and which almost everybody praised. Now we must have an imminent threat before we can take out another murderer of many Americans.

James L. Burchett, Nicholasville

GOP ‘exclusive club

’The Republican Party persists in beating the drum that the Democrats act out of a disappointment in the outcome of the 2016 election, that the Democrats won’t accept the will of the voters.

Actually it is the outcome of the 2018 elections that has caused the Republican Party to dig in their heels after losing the people’s House. Had the Republican Party conducted itself in a way acceptable to the American voters they might have retained a majority in the people’s House but they didn’t.

Now that the people have spoken through the House of Representatives and articles of impeachment have passed to the Senate for a trial in the impeachment of Donald John Trump, president of the United States, the Senate majority is digging in to run roughshod over the U.S. Constitution and the American people by excluding the press from including America in the proceedings.

The Republican Party is a party of exclusion, an exclusive club for a few. The Democratic Party is a party of inclusion. The 300 million people of America should be included in the trial as a gallery to witness how our Senate operates. Sen. Mitch McConnell should not proceed behind closed doors.

Jamie Kirven, Louisville

Values not Christian

I can respect any president who is passionate about leading the country, while I try to understand the circumstances of his or her politics and the pressures of leadership.

But how can I support a political “leader” who personifies the immoral, degenerate, and egotistical personal characteristics we have been taught to repudiate as Christians. Good people should find Donald Trump’s character, or lack of it, appalling and certainly not worthy of the leadership position that is expected to define the best of American values as set forth in our Constitution. Yet good people vote for him and cheer his ranting at narcissistic rallies, applauding his crude, off-color, insulting, simplistic, and shallow speeches.

The “immoral behavior” of this president does not represent the values we Christians hold dear. Trump’s blatant use of Evangelicals to populate his deluded “base” is the opposite of the Christ-like model that has been ingrained in me since childhood; ingrained by my father, a Southern Baptist minister and a Democrat, and a Republican mother whose biblical scholarship would easily match that of her preacher husband. I can hear them now, challenging us from heaven.

W. Harry Clarke, Lexington