Trump seems destined to bring us all down

Dear Editor: My political life began at 8. Dwight Eisenhower looked like my friends’ fathers, while Adlai Stevenson looked like my father and other fathers on whose laps I sometimes sat in synagogue. So I campaigned for Mr. Stevenson, sending him the proceeds (minus startup costs) from the lemonade business I created in order to ensure his victory.

When Ike won, I realized I wouldn’t be secretary of lemonade anytime soon, of ever. But four years later, Adlai was back, and hope sprung anew —a s did Adlai’s haul, heftier than ever, for my stand now featured Mallomars as well as my “new, improved lemonade.” However, even with the profits from my growing empire flooding his coffers, Adlai lost again.

Still, Ike was what everyone called “avuncular,” and “I Like Ike” rolled off my tongue as easily as it did everyone else’s.

But I instinctively did not like the mean-looking man I’d see lurking behind him. And when, years later, that man stalked his way to the foreground as president, it became increasingly, and alarmingly, evident that my youthful instincts had been right.

Now my instincts reassure me that just as Nixon ultimately destroyed himself, so will today’s even more menacing president. But Trump’s nihilism makes Nixon’s ruthlessness look like bad manners, and thus my instincts warn me, too, that before Trump destroys himself, he’ll bring down the rest of us.

Let’s not let him. Let those whose instincts are on alert make a stand, and turn this lemon into lemonade.

Tom Cherwin

Saugerties