Editor:
Although I decry the Mailbox’s recent descent into yet another platform for diatribes on national politics, I feel compelled to respond to Dennis Scales’ latest nonsense (May 8).
First, any linkage between the high cost of eggs and dark-skinned immigrants is misguided. On balance, immigrants, even undocumented ones, contribute greatly to our economy, as Mr. Scales will learn when they’ve all left or gone underground.
Second, the person most responsible for Trump’s election is Trump. Biden inherited an economy in total shambles due to COVID-19, which Trump badly mishandled, and oversaw a recovery stronger than that of almost any other country. Trump inherited an economy that was “the envy of the world” but convinced his gullible base that Biden was responsible for the runaway inflation he had in fact brought under control.
Third, while Mr. Scales may not agree with Biden’s policies, Biden emerged from a middle-class background to devote his life to public service while dealing with the deaths of a wife and two children and another child’s drug addiction. The contrast with Trump’s life story couldn’t be starker. I wonder what Mr. Scales has accomplished that entitles him to call Biden “senile” and “houseplant.”
Finally, the “solid fiscal path” that Mr. Scales sees Trump paving for his descendants would come at the cost of our planet’s integrity. He doesn’t seem to understand our dependence on a healthy planet to sustain us and apparently wants to see a return to an era of unchecked rape and pillage of the environment, an era that is now costing us billions of dollars a year to repair the damage from. We face an existential crisis of planetary habitability and surviving it will cost a lot of money. Will Mr. Scales’ children and grandchildren thank him for the impoverished and uninhabitable world they will inherit?
Ken Burton, McKinleyville
This article appears in ‘God Looking Back at You’.