Unfortunately, Brian Farmer's Nov. 24 letter ("Anti-Trump letter lacks logic") about mine of Nov. 17 ("Trump now has adult supervision") missed the point by a Trumpian mile: My celebrating the midterm results was more pro-democracy than anti-Trump, although those terms are nearly synonymous.
Principally, my comments cheered Democrats' success as a Madisonian check on Trump's "proven contempt for co-equal branches, fawning adoration of despots, sociopathic ability to lie, reptilian lack of empathy and abhorrence of the free press." Anyone blind to those flagrant Trump traits is lost in the Trumpiverse's most swarthy depths.
On policy, Farmer claiming the GOP-held Congress hasn't mollycoddled Trump since it didn't fund his 12th-century border wall concept or repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is misleading, a typical Trumpketeering avoidance of basic details.
First, obvious to realists, "the wall" was a cynical campaign ploy lacking any evidentiary basis for effectiveness and it will never be funded. Second, careful observers remember that 95 percent of House and all Senate Republicans voted to repeal the ACA — no Democrats — except for the one principled conservative who was unafraid to cross Trump, John McCain. And, once again, 95 percent of House and all Senate Republicans supported Trump's economically purblind, "thank you, rich donors" tax giveaways — again, no Democrats.
Farmer parroted that I have "Trump Derangement Syndrome," a mundane term wielded jejunely by Fox News' full-time Trump sycophants and part-time Trump advisors/stumpers. It's a trite dodge used by Trumpketeers who have no rational defense for their Oval Office messiah's authoritarian impulses, the intellectual equivalent of a 5-year-old's "I know you are, but what am I?"
As Trump himself is the definition of "fake news," Trumpism is the definition of willful nescience, misdirecting spin, childish retorts and "alternative facts." Thus, Farmer's comments are par for the course, unfortunately.
The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.