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Letters to the Editor: Donald Trump is a traitor on par with Benedict Arnold and Jefferson Davis

Police stand guard outside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.
Police stand guard outside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, trying to hold off violent Trump supporters.
(Julio Cortez / Associated Press)
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To the editor: The three biggest traitors in American history are Benedict Arnold, Jefferson Davis and Donald Trump.

The first two failed to destroy our republic. As I read the news of the insurrection in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, I can only wonder what damage has been done by the third.

Victor Leipzig, Huntington Beach

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To the editor: I watched in horror as a treasonous mob attacked the U.S. Capitol. This is what happens in banana republics. Thanks to the terrible tweets from President Trump saying that the election results are fraudulent (they were not), many of his supporters feel cheated, which they were not.

Trump must be held accountable for his seditious behavior if we are to maintain our democracy.

As an immigrant from Europe, I came here 40 years ago believing that America was the greatest democracy in the world. We are now on the brink of civil war.

The country is now reaping the whirlwind of the 2016 election and we are seeing what happens when you elect a president who only does things in his own self-interest.

Paul Sunderland, Los Angeles

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To the editor: In my nearly 90 years, I have never seen such a display of garbage. We are again acting like a third-world country.

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Because of the words and actions of a wannabe dictator, the votes of nearly 81.3 million people are being ignored. The fact is, Trump was beaten and he cannot accept the fact that he lost. We just do not want him anymore.

When you have government officials threatened with kidnaping and demonstrations against our Constitution, you have officially arrived at third-world status. Our Constitution is at stake and the Republican Party is destroying it.

I’ve voted for people from all parties, but I will never vote for a Republican again. Right now, I am so ashamed to be an American, something I have been so proud of all my life.

Ardyce Martin, Banning

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To the editor: Congress does not typically act very quickly. However, it has two weeks to impeach and convict Trump. He has done enough damage to this country and should not have the opportunity to do more.

If convicted, he could never run again for office. The man needs to be removed from our government and should never have the right to do more damage.

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What he has done is despicable.

Mike Reardon, Fallbrook

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To the editor: We have now hit bottom.

Trump’s most loyal followers have violently invaded the heart of our government. Trump has done nothing to stop this and in fact has inspired his followers through word and deed to perform an act more akin to a dictatorship than the greatest democracy in the history of the world.

Three things should be done immediately.

First, call all lawmakers to end the charade perpetrated by the senators who objected to ratifying states’ electoral votes. They must immediately finalize the 2020 election results.

Second, bring a bill of impeachment against Trump for failing to defend the Constitution.

Third, Vice President Mike Pence must bring the members of the Cabinet together to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Trump as president of the United States.

This is the only way to bring this sordid chapter in our nation’s history to an end. We owe it to the people to begin the healing now.

Jay Slater, Los Angeles

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To the editor: Trump encouraged his followers to try to overthrow our government. This man either needs to be confined to a locked institution or more reasonably arrested and tried for treason.

Trump’s incitement is treason against our country. The time to keep looking the other way and pretending it isn’t so serious is long past.

Christin Rubesh, Port Hueneme

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To the editor: Pence and a majority of the principal Cabinet members should invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Trump immediately for sedition.

No president, who incites a mob of people as Trump did with his continuing lies about a stolen election, should remain in office for another minute. He is clearly unable to perform his duties as president — duties that require respect for the Constitution and the rule of law

After the chaos of Jan. 6, achieving a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress should not present a problem.

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Susan Corey Everson, Thousand Oaks

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To the editor: There is at least one way in which this is worse than the 9/11 attacks.

What happened on Jan. 6 was done by home-grown American terrorists. I have no use, no sympathy, no empathy and absolutely not one iota of respect for them.

Trump issued a statement to calm the rioters in which he said he loved them and called them special. How vile and disgusting.

I don’t love them. They’re special like everyone who has entered a school and mowed down innocent children, everyone who burned a church to the ground, and everyone who sold American secrets to our enemies.

What a sad day for Americans.

James Himes, Hacienda Heights

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To the editor: How far down is the United States going to sink?

Four years ago, we elected a new president, and the losing candidate moved on. Now, that president is showing the same character that was the butt of jokes for decades.

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The events of Jan. 6 demonstrate we have become a third-world country. We are decimating an election process that worked for centuries.

Is anyone really surprised? Embarrassing doesn’t even begin to describe how this nation now looks to a large portion of the rest of the world.

Anne Wimberley-Robinson, Oceanside

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To the editor: I am outraged that the rioters are being “escorted out” of the Capitol; they need to be arrested and charged. They have used force and violence to invade the Capitol in order to “influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion,” which is the definition of domestic terrorism under federal law.

As I write, they have for the time being succeeded in preventing the peaceful transfer of power, just as Trump intended.

Enough is enough. The incoming Biden administration needs to ensure that the rioters who can be identified are charged, beginning with the man who incited these acts of domestic terrorism: Donald Trump.

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Mitchell Zimmerman, Palo Alto

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To the editor: I think, in light of Trump’s speech and subsequent Capitol violence, political cartoonists should portray Trump underneath a version of the infamous question posed to Sen. Joseph McCarthy: Mr. President, at long last, have you left no sense of decency?

Anne Knapp, Seattle

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To the editor: At a fundraiser in September 2016, Hillary Clinton said the following:

“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”

I think I know who’s now saying, “I hate to say I told you so.”

Bob Fey, Orange

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To the editor: Why didn’t the mob that invaded the Capitol get shot or killed by police, as countless unarmed Black men have been for selling cigarettes, and as Black boys have been while playing with toy guns?

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Mary Weaver, Studio City

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To the editor: Where were the police and military in full riot gear — the same ones that met peaceful Black Live Matter protests? If the rioters were socialist or Black, they’d be cleaning blood off the Capitol floor right now.

The photo of a rioter on the dais of the Senate will be a fitting symbol of Trump’s presidency.

This putsch is an embarrassment to our nation. We are now in the column of “shithole countries” that this president notoriously complained about thanks to the rhetoric of this vile man.

Isaac Hirschbein, La Mesa

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To the editor: Let’s make no mistake about what Trump incited.

The violence and incursion into the nation’s legislative buildings were not a protest of policy. It was a protest against the means by which policy is made. It was a protest against democracy, a protest against the fundamental values of the nation.

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It was authoritarian behavior instigated by an autocratic president and ambitious Republicans. Their protest desecrated the flag they carried. It was not an American protest, but a protest in support of tyranny.

It was treason.

Fred Burgess, Camarillo

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