Mash Notes, Hate Mail & Other Correspondence

To the Editor: Merriam Webster defines stupidity as acts “lacking intelligence or reason.” A corollary is that stupid decisions reflect a lack of understanding of their consequences. Given these propositions, the torrent of ill-conceived, consistently incompetent, and sometimes illegal appointments, policies and directives emanating from the Trump White House can best be described as a firehose of stupidity. Trump’s recent decisions lack intelligence and demonstrate little understanding of their possible consequences. Trump’s imposition of a 25 percent tariff on a broad range of Canadian and Mexican goods makes little sense even considering their thirty-day suspension. Even the Wall Street Journal has called the policy “The …

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Dear Editor, Stunning, isn’t it? Watching them all fall in line, like dominoes, the spineless, the fearful, the greedy, the ignorant, the stupid, the fascist? Eight years ago, there was some semblance of institutional resistance to the Criminal Dictator. This time around, complicity in dismantling the democracy is in full swing. In lockstep with the 77+ million who stupidly believe this idiot is the savior, Time Magazine, The Washington Post, the LA Times, the odious Silicon Valley tech bros, the cult captives in both houses of Congress, all of them can’t plant their lips on his backside fast enough, tongues hanging out, shoveling millions and …

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To the Editor: Donald Trump convincingly won the 2024 election by adding a substantial number of Black and Hispanic voters to his MAGA base. Polls indicate that these voters cast their ballot on pocketbook issues, believing that Trump was better suited to managing the economy than Harris. The mystery is how did a large segment of the working-class come to accept that an inept, arrogant plutocrat would manage the economy in their interest? To understand the issue, we need to go beyond the discussion of campaign strategies or individual characteristics to an analysis of the four-decade-long influence of the economic ideology known as neoliberalism. Neoliberalism …

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To the New Hampshire Gazette, Shame. Shame. Our country just elected a racist, a sexual assaulter, a compulsive liar, a traitor, a convicted felon, a business fraud, a twice-impeached, disgraced ex-president with severely diminished mental abilities and judgment to the highest office in the nation. Donald Trump is all of that and worse. He is the most vile person that one can imagine. What parent would choose him as a role model for their child? Yet we knew this, having suffered through four years of his maladministration. Some say, “I don’t like what he says but I like his policies.” And just what are those …

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To the Editor: A majority of the American electorate has seen fit to elect an immoral, untruthful, misogynistic, inept narcissist to the highest office in the land. The consequences of their decision are uncertain, but given Trump’s character and stated intentions, the portents are not good. How did most voters come to the decision to elect such a flawed candidate? Pundits have already peppered the airwaves and internet with their theories, but the issues are complex and intertwined and will be debated endlessly. Two factors, however, stand out: the positions of both political parties and beliefs of the electorate. Aside from a few courageous individuals, …

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Who won this recent horror showI truly wish I did not knowbecause I’m not permitted beer,**and so, alas, I won’t be drowning woe with alcohol. I’ll get no cheerfrom rye or scotch, bourbon or clear200 proof grain. I’ll have to makedue with no libation this election year. I give myself a healthy shakeand ask if there is some mistakethat Trumpelstiltskin—what a creep—has really won. Oh, how I ache with sadness, sorrow, dark and deep;for our bleak future I do weep,and hope that soon eternally I’ll sleep,and hope that soon eternally I’ll sleep. by W.D.Ehrhart *My apologies to Robert Frost for hijacking his poem “Stopping by …

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