Much ado about wealthy ‘twits’

Re “Why ‘Succession’ keeps us glued to our screens watching terrible people,” Opinion, Dec. 1

Columnist LZ Granderson stated that the HBO show “Succession” keeps us glued to our screens. It doesn’t for me. I sat through three episodes, and my first thought was “meh.”

Being born and raised in Britain, I was a big fan of Monty Python, which pilloried the wealthy. Who can forget the hilarious “upper class twit of the year” sketch?

Let’s face it: The children born into extreme wealth have almost no incentive to do well at anything. They have no reason to cultivate any of our nobler qualities. They can get by in life in spite of being twits.

Take almost anyone, give them gobs of money and fame, and it’s unlikely that they’ll become better people.

I was hoping that “Succession” would offer something. I did enjoy the humor. In the first episode, an advisor to the character Kendall asked if he needed to call his dad while in the middle of trying to close a big deal. He responded by saying: “No, I don’t want to call my dad. Do you want to call your dad? Do you want to call your dad? Does anybody want to call their dad?”

I guess Monty Python soured me on the rich and famous. I’ve seen enough of the twits, thank you very much. David Tempest

Mar Vista

In his column exploring the appeal of “Succession,” Granderson states that, with the election of Donald Trump, “a presidential candidate’s boasting of grabbing women’s genitals [stopped] being disqualifying.”

That this is true owes itself only to the fact that Trump won the electoral college vote in 2016. He lost the popular vote in both 2016 and 2020, and his party was defeated in 2018 and 2020.

In other words, Trump has never won a popular election for the White House, just as his party has not since 2004. Joan Walston

Santa Monica