Todd Hooper’s logic on Trump is full of holes

Former Republican candidate for office Todd Hooper compares the presidencies of Donald Trump and Barack Obama in his recent Marin Voice commentary (“President’s inability to unify the nation a trait shared with recent leaders,” June 27). He finds both lacking in their ability to bring the country together. He criticizes both of them as divisive. The only policy Hooper mentions as divisive, however, is the Affordable Care Act.

No, the ACA wasn’t jammed through Congress — there were literally dozens of hearings before the final vote. No, it is not rejected by every political faction. Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, like some other Republicans, urges constituents who recently lost their insurance to obtain health care under the very act his party has tried seven times to repeal.

Of course Hooper mentions no Trump policies. That is because the overwhelming majority of Americans reject them — the abolition of the ACA, tax cuts for the rich, discrimination against the LBGTQ+ community in employment, taking away abortion rights and keeping up Confederate statues, to name a few examples.

The majority of Americans also find Trump’s leadership on the pandemic unacceptable. Trump has consistently lied about it, politicized the use of masks and promoted worthless drugs to cure it. Hooper asks us to “set aside” Trump’s policies and focus on his tone. With the United States having 4% of the world’s population and 25% of the world’s COVID-19 deaths, that is a big ask.

— Ruth Dell, Tiburon