Mr. Thomas Brown’s letter in the April 9 Bristol Phoenix (“These days, the Presidential failings are magnified”) seems like it should have been posted on April 1 and published in the Onion rather that the venerable Phoenix. 

Mr. Brown starts off by noting he has been saying for several years that America is in trouble because we seem unable to do well even the most fundamental things … He must have overlooked the past 30 to 40 years, because the problems he noted have been with us for a good long time. His letter ignores many compelling facts and is far from a dispassionate analysis.

He criticizes President Donald Trump for almost every shortcoming in America that one could imagine. The President is far from perfect, at times exhibiting significant flaws. However, to assert that the President is not equipped either intellectually of temperamentally to hold “the job into which he stumbled” is no more than an opinion.

It was a while ago, but I seem to remember he was elected by the very people he now serves. After a litany of accusations and skills that the President lacks, one wonders if Mr. Brown simply consulted a thesaurus to cherry pick the most negative, pejorative terms to embellish his ad hominem arguments.

Regarding the pandemic, of course it’s all Trump’s fault. Contrary to Mr. Brown’s claim, scientists around the world did not see the pandemic coming, and that includes the World Health Organization. It was not until the third week in January that China admitted that the virus could pass from person to person. When Trump blocked air traffic from China on Jan. 31, he was castigated by many as premature, xenophobic, and even racist. But this action prevented a potentially worse disaster.

Then there are the “economic rescue efforts …” Mr. Brown claims that these were aimed largely at those who already have – corporations and the rich. The truth is that corporations hire people and pay them a salary. This whole discussion about leaving the have-nots on their own — which is not true — has a very Marxist tone to it. It also ignores the impressive economic results that the Trump administration had achieved in the past three years, which brought employment of the have-nots to historic lows and wages to new heights.

Mr. Brown makes a good Monday morning quarterback. His criticism reminds me of T.R. Roosevelt’s comments on “The Man in the Arena.” “It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles … The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena …”

The point that Trump “has no respect for either constitutional or statutory law …” brings to mind President Barack Obama’s declaration that, “I've got a pen and I've got a phone …” Did Mr. Brown join the outrage then, when Obama was abusing executive authority?

There is no doubt about Mr. Brown’s feelings that President Trump should have been removed from office. The Democratic Party’s attempt to remove Trump was based on a bogus Russian conspiracy and was a perversion  of Congressional power and an enormous barrier to an administration trying to move the country forward. Many note Trump’s resiliency under such false fire is unprecedented since Lincoln. Those who perpetuated this false agenda have yet to reckon with pending charges.  

We can be sure that Russia and China are exploiting this crisis to their benefit. Unhinged letters like Mr. Brown’s do not fit well in the common tag line that “we will get through this together.”

Mike Byrnes
Bristol