With Trump’s court outbursts, judges keep tolerating the intolerable

Re “First 7 jurors picked for Trump criminal trial” (Page A2, April 17): After Donald Trump again violated courtroom rules by loudly interjecting during jury selection, Judge Juan Merchan replied, “I won’t tolerate that.”

So will the judge just impose a trivial fine that Trump can easily pay?

Any other defendant engaging in so many violations would have been put in jail for contempt of court long ago. Trump has been tolerated for far too long. The legal system has bent over backward affording him deference that would be the envy of any king. As with similar wrist-slap fines handed to polluters by government agencies, Trump seems to view such penalties as a mere cost of doing business — the business of undermining democracy by sowing corrosive lies and mobilizing vindictive hate among his followers.

Philosopher Karl Popper warned, “If we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.”

It’s long past time for ending such tolerance when it comes to Trump. Who needs external enemies when he and his fascist-inspired MAGA movement are determined to destroy our civil society from within?

Any other defendant engaging in so many violations would have been put in jail for contempt of court long ago.

BRYAN L. TUCKER Jamaica Plain