Writing and making public one’s opinions guarantees people will respond. Writers, performers and every human likely desire his or her thoughts, and even their life, to matter to others. The alternative is to become hermits.
Like other opinion writers I get my share of positive and negative letters, but during the Trump administration the level of invective for those questioning anything the president says seems to have become more intense.
President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are in a verbal battle that resembles schoolyard behavior I recall as a child: “Your mother wears combat boots,” said one kid. “Oh yeah, well your mother is (something I can’t print).” Fisticuffs or shoving soon followed before a teacher broke it up.
Speaker Pelosi recently said the president has “doggy-doo on his shoes.” The president responded that the speaker has “mental problems.” He’s said worse about her, but it’s hard to imagine she could top (or bottom) the “doggy-doo” remark.
Many people have written in response to my column last week on the danger of promoting hydroxychloroquine when the FDA, NIH and experienced physicians have said it is not recommended for prevention or treatment of COVID-19. President Trump said he has taken the drug for two weeks to protect himself. I wrote that I recalled the number of snake oil salesmen who have been part of a history of medical quackery. While saying the president is not one of those, some readers took more than offense at what they considered the link and they let me know it.