Thank you, opinion page column and letter writers Elizabeth Lareau Whitcomb, Emmet Barcalow, Susan Glovacki and others, for your eloquent descriptions of what troubles so many of us about what’s being done with our federal government. Sadly, as evidenced by some subsequent letters, some people aren’t paying attention. Let’s hope that more people are.

As you said, the government we had was nowhere near perfect — no government is — but there’s a right way to fix things, and that’s not what’s happening. America has always had some flaws, but it’s also had a lot going for it, both here and around the world. Donald Trump and his crew seem determined to destroy that.

They talk of making America great and saving it from destruction, but America was already great, and the tools for its salvation are embedded in the constitutional structures that they seem to consider annoying impediments.

One strength of government by the people is that it can change itself if the people want it to change. If Trump really had the mandate he claims he has, he could pass laws through Congress to make his changes. The fact that instead he’s delegated the job to a dictator wannabe and defied the courts to stop him is proof to anyone who will honestly look that he knows he doesn’t have a mandate and he doesn’t care.

That’s not making America great — that’s taking America for a ride. It’s time to pull him over.

Michael Naughton

Millers Falls