Weaponizing our government to exact his revenge
Dartmouth, Mass.: Thousands of articles and printed letters and scores of books analyze and offer explanations of what motivates President Trump. Money, media attention, respect from the New York political and financial elites and envy of the most notorious autocratic leaders have been offered as answers. While all of these have merit and are clearly accurate, I submit that his major motivator is revenge.
The most recent example is his punitive actions regarding Columbia University (“Columbia caves to Trump,” March 22). The characterization of the withholding of millions of dollars in funding as reaction to insufficient protection of Jewish students at Columbia has been debunked by journalists who describe a real estate deal gone sour. Years ago, Trump offered to sell property to Columbia to accommodate its need for expansion. His offer was ultimately rejected and other property was purchased. No doubt, this unconsummated deal remained an affront to Trump’s fragile ego and added Columbia to the list of enemies he has vowed to retaliate against.
Of course, repentant enemies can be spared by humbling themselves or their institutions by bowing to his demands, publicly bestowing fidelity and, in some cases, groveling. Trump’s handlers are cleverly ferreting out these targets and feeding him the fake narrative to offer to the public while fulfilling his obsessive need to penalize his detractors, financial competitors and critics.
By cleverly stoking Trump’s unmitigated compulsion to penalize, his coterie of Project 2025 proponents are dismantling every program and department that promotes diversity, advances more equality of opportunity and protects voting rights — in essence, a war against democracy. Betty Ussach
$400M for what?
Parkland, Fla.: Your article regarding Columbia University caving to the Trump administration over its policy regarding anti-Israeli protests in order to preserve $400 million in grants to the university raises an interesting question. Why should an Ivy League school receive such money while charging students $100,000 per year? I wonder if smaller, less-known universities receive such funding. John Squicciarini
Wealth & welfare
Monroe Township, N.J.: Columbia caves to Trump to get $400 million in grants. With an endowment of $14.8 billion in value, why should it receive one penny of taxpayer money? This is pure abuse of taxpayers, who are being fleeced. And I know Columbia is only one of many getting funds from taxpayers. John Ray
War on education
Bronx: I can’t believe Trump made such a show of shutting down the Department of Education — surrounded in the East Room by an overabundance of flags, children’s desks with children at them and a roomful of sycophants who were applauding as he signed the executive order! Our education system needs repair; our math and reading scores have not been where they should be in some time, but closing the department is not the solution. What happens to special needs kids who need extra help? What happens to scholarship programs that help the very bright kids who might bring creative solutions to current or future problems? Oh, I forgot that Trump said he loves the poorly educated. He is obviously not aware of the fact that European and Asian children know more about America than Americans do — and I guess he doesn’t care. Uneducated folks are more easily manipulated, I suppose. What have we created? Claudette Mobley
Body-politic shaming
Scranton, Pa.: Leave it to Trump to add fat-shaming to his inventory of imbecilic insults, as he recently characterized the country he was elected to serve as “fat,” “dumb,” “bloated,” “stupid” and “disgusting.” Does this sound like a person who loves America, as he often professes? If a spouse hurled those words at their partner, it would likely warrant a trip to marriage counseling at best, with divorce court not far behind. But, as he has said that he loves the poorly educated, why would he then bite the hands that voted for him? You can’t have it both ways, King Don. Don’t be stupid. Vin Morabito
Know-nothings
Bronx: Wow. The level of ignorance demonstrated in the letters last Friday was unusually high, even for Republicans. One Voicer complains of problems with Social Security and praises Elon Musk — whose cutting of Social Security employees actually caused those problems. Other Voicers criticize the judge who ordered deported “criminals” returned to this country from South America, failing to understand that few if any of these men have actually been tried or convicted of anything, meaning they are not criminals — and some of them were citizens. Another Voicer “reminds” the French that this country saved them from the Nazis, apparently forgetting that France financed much of our Revolution and helped train colonists, and without that help, we would have remained a British colony. Sad, very sad. David Fisher
Laws before enforcement
Brooklyn: To Voicer Gregory J. Topliff: I see that you are in favor of just rounding up perceived criminals and deporting them. Did you ever hear of due process? Do we leave everything up to law enforcement officers to decide? Oh yeah, you say you are a former law enforcement officer. Well, so am I. Did you ever make a mistake? Did your superiors ever make a mistake? Sorry, but so far this is still the United States of America, and we do things according to the law. Steve Miller
Call it off
San Mateo, Calif.: Our forces are engaged in another whack-a-mole effort to dissuade the Houthi forces of Yemen who reestablished their Red Sea blockade after the Netanyahu regime again cut off food, water and electricity to Gaza and resumed bombing. So once more, a perfectly normal group of human beings are considered the “other” and less than us, enabling continued genocide. We think we need to separate the extremist settler regime that is in control presently from the rest of Israelis who want to continue the ceasefire and negotiations to end the conflict, return hostages and restore some semblance of normalcy to their lives. “One recent phone call,” as we are told to believe, resulted in the ceasefire at the start of the Trump administration. Maybe another phone call is in order to demand that it all stop again? Better than our being sucked into yet another pointless conflict. Mike Caggiano
Not printed
Brooklyn: To Voicer Tony Anastasio: I agree with you wholeheartedly regarding the Daily News’ lack of coverage of the astronauts’ homecoming. I think it’s safe to say that, God forbid, their capsule exploded coming back, it would be front-page news. However, coming back safely is not worthy of the same? Incredulously, I scoured the printed newspaper for the next two days, hoping I missed an article, but to no avail. How sad (and scary) is it that we live in a world where you can’t trust the media to report the news without any political bias? I, for one, am happy the astronauts are finally home safely, regardless of how they got here. L. Rudolph
Overstated emergency
Bergenfield, N.J.: What rescue mission? Were they in any danger? No. This was just the completion of a delayed mission. Jack De Lucia
Negative attention
Brooklyn: It happened the first time Trump was elected. The media spent so much time laughing off his candidacy and putting him on the front page to sell papers that he was the only candidate on anyone’s mind, and he won the nomination and the presidency. I’m afraid that if you don’t provide equal coverage to the many mayoral candidates who actually care about New York and not their own agendas and egos, people will see this as a choice between Mayor Adams and Andrew Cuomo — in my opinion, the two worst candidates for mayor. Please make it abundantly clear to your readers that they have a choice beyond these two scandal-plagued people. Melinda LaRose
Left-out language
Staten Island: Quite a few times a month, if not weekly, there are full-page ads offering “Affordable Housing for Rent.” The ad is written in English along with 10 other languages indicating how to apply. I am perplexed as to why Hebrew is not one of them. Myra Goodman
