In letters: Trump/Zelenskyy blowup reminiscent of Stalin’s ‘show trials’ | Opinion
He’s not Stalin ... yet
There is an historical parallel of sorts between the blowup in the Oval Office involving Volodymyr Zelenskyy and President Donald Trump last Friday. It reminded me of the “show trials” in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. These saw Joseph Stalin’s domestic opponents dragged into a corrupt courtroom, accused of fake crimes and confronted with lying witnesses. The defendants often broke down on the stand and confessed to their “sins.” They did so not because they were guilty, but because they sought to keep their families, including their children, from being sent to a prison camp.
In Trump’s version, President Zelenskyy of Ukraine was bombarded with false accusations while the cameras rolled. Unlike Stalin’s victims, he refused to cave in and fought back valiantly. This just goes to show that President Trump is no Joseph Stalin. Yet.
Bill Rumbler
San Luis Obispo
Trump fails to bully Zelenskyy
It is so painful to watch what professional diplomacy is NOT! Makes me want to join Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Donald Trump and his suck-up politicians don’t represent the United States. Trump has turned us into a clown show for all the world to watch in horror.
James Carlisle
Atascadero
Open letter to Dan Dow
I do not approve of your activity on social media criticizing a sitting Superior Court judge for performing his duties as a member of the constitutionally independent judicial branch of government. You should know better than to attempt to interfere in such a way.
In my almost 20 years as a district attorney investigator and 30 years as a law enforcement officer, I have never seen such inappropriate behavior from any district attorney.
Unfortunately, this activity appears to follow a trend across the country of attempting to intimidate members of the judiciary in acts large and small.
James W. “Bill” Miller
Paso Robles
Where’s the outrage?
Our constitutional government is under attack! This is being met with an eerie silence by our elected representatives, our living former presidents, the media and the public at large.
If you’ve wondered if a government that operated as a for-profit, private enterprise would be in your best interests, decide for yourself, you’re witnessing it. We’ve been racing in this direction for at least 50 years.
Lewis Powell, a corporate lawyer representing the tobacco industry and appointed a Supreme Court justice under Nixon, wrote the infamous Powell Memo in 1971. He argued the American economic system was under attack from consumer, labor and environmental groups, and exhorted corporations to release a tidal wave of money into politics.
Ronald Reagan, a corporate spokesman himself, pushed further, saying “government is not the solution; government is the problem” and Republicans began electing individuals who didn’t believe in government and did everything in their power to undermine its effectiveness. The 2010 Citizens United decision was the final nail in the coffin.
We now have two political parties ignoring the people’s interest: the Republicans who favor oligarchs and the Democrats who favor corporations, both creating the best government money can buy.
Donald Archer
Cambria
Adapt or fail
In these times of explosive change that many view as increasingly and unceasingly destructive, feelings of helplessness emerge. How can a modern democracy promote prosperity and be exported to other nations when it appears to be failing where it began?
The answer is disarmingly simple: The people and parties who want a democratic republic to prosper and prevail must win elections. If they are losing elections, they must adapt and stop stubbornly following policies and strategies that don’t work.
We are never helpless in the task of changing ourselves, and who among us would not benefit from first recognizing the inherent dignity of our political rivals?
“E Pluribus Unum” (out of many, one) makes sense when human dignity and virtue augment and accompany freedom as society’s goals. Free people may find different paths to those goals, but democracy should not be lost by demanding ideological purity that results in a static or shrinking base.
Dan Biezad
San Luis Obispo
Don’t believe DOGE
Anyone who believes that the Trump/Musk DOGE attack on the federal workforce is about saving money needs a reality check.
It is a presidential power grab under which the president claims the right to dismiss civil servants without due process, defund programs and shut down entire departments approved by Congress.
It is also an attack on a professional workforce that Trump wants to replace with sycophants for his own ideological and political reasons. Payments to the federal civilian workforce as of 2022 were about $271 billion, or less than 5% of the entire federal budget, whereas Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy would cost $400 billion per year and the deficit is projected at around $1.9 trillion.
So, cutting the whole workforce by 10% would save $27 billion, i.e., 6% of the tax cuts. The actual savings will likely be zero or negative due to losses arising from indiscriminate firings of experienced people.
DOGE is political theater that is intended to make us believe that Trump is serious about balancing the budget. He isn’t. The last time Trump was President he ran up the largest deficit in history, and chances are he will do the same thing this time.
Christopher Toews
San Luis Obispo
This story was originally published March 1, 2025 at 5:00 AM.