Readers’ comments: March 7, 2025

The time for action is now
Dear editor:
In 1986, I spent a brief period living in Germany. At the time, I was struck by how comfortable I felt among the people, who, despite speaking a different language, seemed so much like those I encountered back home. This similarity led me to reflect deeply during a visit to the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site near Munich. In a conversation with a German friend, I remarked that my easy familiarity with Germans made me wonder if Americans were capable of committing similar atrocities. His response was chillingly simple: “Perhaps, but we actually did it.”
Today, I am haunted by that conversation, particularly considering how the Trump/Musk administration is treating vulnerable groups — immigrants, LGBTQ+ individuals, federal workers, veterans, members of the press, and even foreign dignitaries. The administration’s disregard for humanitarian aid, scientific research, international health organizations, and climate agreements leaves me wondering whether future generations of Americans will one day say, “But we actually did it.”
Did the narrow minority (49.9% of the popular vote) who secured Donald Trump and J.D. Vance’s election truly intend for this to be the outcome? Are members of the House and Senate comfortable placing the president’s dictates above the integrity of their institution? And how many federal judges will show similar deference with the legal challenges against this administration’s actions?
We must act to change this prospective narrative — to one where we can say, “We were able to overcome it.” The time for meaningful action is now, before the damage becomes irreversible.
Allan Wicker
Claremont

‘A Day of American Infamy’ indeed
Dear editor:
New York Times columnist Bret Stephens aptly described President Trump and Vice President Vance’s Oval Office attack on Volodymyr Zelensky last week as “A Day of American Infamy.” The reference, of course, was to FDR’s iconic characterization of the Japanese surprise attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, calling it “a date which will live in infamy.”
In this case, the infamy came from our own leaders, Trump and Vance. Their appalling and likely planned verbal attack on Zelensky was a stunning sabotage of a free nation’s fight for survival from an unprovoked invasion from Vladmir Putin.
And now the Trump administration has “paused” military aid to Ukraine in an extraordinary effort to pressure Zelensky to capitulate to peace talks on Russia’s terms. February 28, 2025 will live in memory as a Day of American Infamy because it marks the day that Trump attacked democracy in Ukraine and handed victory on a platter to Putin’s Russia.
Sam Atwood
Claremont

Assailing Trump’s ‘weak, idiotic appeasement’
Dear editor:
Appeasement didn’t work at Munich in 1938 when British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain bowed the knee to Hitler and gave up Czechoslovakia. We all know how that turned out. Trump’s appeasement and lies will again lead to a bad outcome.
Ukraine did not start this war. On the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion all of Europe gathers at Kyiv. Much of NATO is represented in that assemblage — except the U.S. Our absence is pathetic and cowardly.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, from Kyiv, wrote on X: “On the 3rd anniversary of Russia’s brutal invasion, Europe is in Kyiv. We are in Kyiv today, because Ukraine is Europe. In this fight for survival, it is not only the destiny of Ukraine that is at stake. It is Europe’s destiny.”
It is also America’s destiny. But our president disses Ukraine and Zelensky because he had the audacity to stand up to the Mafia-like extortion by our petulant Narcissist in Chief. It will be our sons and daughters dragged into the next war caused by Trump’s weak, idiotic appeasement of a real dictator.
This is our Munich moment. Let’s learn and heed the lesson.
John Forney
Claremont

Trump’s plan to gut education will impact Claremont
Dear editor:
Trump and Musk want to cut public education and healthcare in order to slash taxes for billionaires. Their plan to “block grant” federal education programs and gut the U.S. Department of Education would rob 26 million low-income students (that’s half the school population) of critical services and 7.5 million students with disabilities of special education support. It would eliminate career and technical education for 12 million students, threatening their future job options, as well as, of course, the nation’s supply of skilled labor.
Slashing Medicaid and student loans could strip healthcare coverage from 10.3 million people and end access to student loans, making college unaffordable for another 10 million working-class families.
Claremont schools will suffer. Tell your Congressional representatives to oppose these unwise plans. My kids attended public schools in Claremont K-12 and got great educations. I want your kids to have the same advantages.
Ivan Light
Claremont