NOT ANY EX-PRESIDENT

We frequently get letters asking why we still cover or include letters about former President Donald Trump in The San Diego Union-tribune. The question comes both from people who love the former president and think he should be allowed to live in peace since he no longer holds office and those who dislike him and wish he would just go away.

His supporters contend too much attention is devoted to developments in the many investigations involving him, his comments about such topics as Russian warcraft and his apparently growing approbation for the Jan. 6 insurrection.

His detractors argue the media ought to ignore his antics, rallies and odd press releases about such things as hitting a hole-inone because they just encourage his fans to send him more money and basically raise the collective blood pressure of the nation.

The obvious answer — that he appears to have no intention of fading away quietly as most former presidents initially do, that he remains the de facto leader of the Republican Party and that he might make a third run for the White House in 2024 — seems to satisfy neither side.

The fact is Trump, as both a personality and a movement, still merits coverage by virtue of his actions, or those of his critics and supporters, such as Rep. Kevin Mccarthy’s recent caught-ontape revelations. A president can’t have two impeachments, at least 11 campaign or administration associates charged with crimes or jailed, and 2,000 or so followers storm the nation’s Capitol without it growing a fairly long news tail that far outlives his term.

From a letters standpoint, our goal is to run public comments that reflect the breadth of topics covered in reader submissions. And, despite everything else that is going on, we still get a lot of Trump letters because either he puts himself out there, or the Republican Party takes a position he likely proposed (such as rejecting the Commission on Presidential Debates), or some new development arises in one of several state or federal investigations in places like Georgia, New York and Washington, D.C.

Despite Joe Biden being president and actually empowered to propose and implement sweeping policies that affect our daily lives, we get far fewer letters about him, his staff or his family, either pro or con.

One reason may be a dearth of drama so far in his administration. He has a smaller-than-average number of A-list presidential team members heading for the door or being shown to it, and none have the kind of letter-generating name recognition or elevated position of a Michael Flynn, Sean Spicer or Reince Priebus. According to The Brookings Institution, only 11 percent of top-ranking members of the Biden team left in his first year. By comparison, Trump posted a 35 percent first-year turnover rate, which can’t help but generate discussion.

Another factor may be Biden has a smaller circle of family members with any role in governing. One could probably count the number of letters we have received about Jill Biden on one hand and if it weren’t for the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop, family-related letters would be almost nonexistent. Meanwhile, Trump’s family continues to generate discussion, whether it’s about Ivanka Trump’s testimony before the Jan. 6 commission or son-in-law Jared Kushner being handed $2 billion from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund for no financially sound purpose.

Also, Biden’s mildmannered personality has not spawned a cottage industry of cable TV, radio and tell-all book publishers, each financially dedicated to keeping discussion of him front and center. For example, Hunter Biden’s book, despite revelations of almost Dionysian debauchery, is said to have sold fewer than 11,000 copies while Mary Trump’s memoir sold 1.35 million copies just in the first week.

For whatever reason, Biden and company have not generated the kind of extreme feelings one way or the other that Trump has and that is reflected in our letters section.

Trump letters may not represent the same proportion of submissions we used to get while he was a candidate or in office — which leaves room for other topics of a local, state, national and international nature — but they still take up a big part of our virtual mailbag. So you’ll still see them.

In short, we run letters about Trump because those are the ones our readers send in and our role is to reflect the views of our readers. If you’d like to share your views, we’d love to read your letters.

is the reader outreach editor and member of The San Diego Union-tribune Editorial Board. Email him a 150-word letter at letters@sduniontribune.com