Letters to the Editor | July 7, 2025

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then there are multiple takeaways from The Inquirer’s photos depicting several gray-haired, white, male senators huddled up discussing the Big Beautiful Bill, and the one of Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Kristi Noem, and others admiring the sparse caged bunks at “Alligator Alcatraz.” Cruelty is one takeaway. That is the consequence of an intentional gathering held to discuss how to preserve tax cuts for the rich while taking away healthcare, food, and other integral lifelines from this nation’s most underserved citizens. It would seem DeSantis is aspiring to create America’s version of El Salvador’s CECOT. Trump, Noem, and the others could not be more delighted with his efforts. The so-called leader of the “free” world is encouraging the most abhorrent treatment of migrants imaginable. Maybe cruelty doesn’t begin to cover it. How about apocalyptic?

Mary Kay Owen, Downingtown

Congress voted to approve the “big, beautiful bill,” but there is nothing beautiful about making cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. For every meal provided to patrons at our food pantry, SNAP provides nine. We should be making it easier for our neighbors to put food on their table, not harder. And by making it easier for people to put nutritious food on their table, we are making it easier for them to do other things like make rent, buy gas, and pay for their utilities. SNAP has a multiplying effect in our communities that we cannot ignore. That, and it is simply the right thing to do — the human thing to do.

The Rev. Christopher Heisey-Terrell, pastor, Prospect Hill Baptist Church, and director at Loaves and Fishes Food Pantry

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker can’t have it both ways. I applaud her efforts to clean our streets, protect housing for its citizens, and revitalize Center City — but it’s gonna take a lot of money. How do you propose to pay for this while, at the same time, reducing the taxes paid by business? Especially with almost guaranteed cuts in federal funding?

Tim Reed, Philadelphia

We currently have bad government coming out of the White House, but who is to blame? In November, voters had the opportunity to elect a vibrant, decent, extremely intelligent, extensively educated, superbly qualified, exceptionally experienced, and truly empathetic woman to the presidency. Instead, many voted for Donald Trump, a vulgar, vindictive, self-serving, overtly narcissistic, egomaniacal charlatan and scoundrel who has no dignity, no integrity, is a pathological liar, and the antithesis of scholarly. This, and the fact that his first term in office was marked by chaos, ineptitude, and two impeachments, did not deter nearly 77 million people from voting him into office a second time.

I think many of those people were not going to vote for a woman, let alone a woman of mixed race married to a Jewish husband. And then there were the 108 million eligible voters who did not even bother to vote. In government, as in all organizations, the attitudes percolate from the top down. So now we have scoundrels at the highest levels of our federal government, goose-stepping in line behind Trump, a man with numerous flagrant and unmitigated character flaws who has the mentality and the demeanor of a spoiled third-grade schoolyard bully. One must wonder if we, as a nation, will survive this assault.

Victor J. Janosik, Norristown

With a court of appeals’ blessing, Donald Trump was recently able to violate a state’s sovereignty by deploying National Guard troops to the streets of a major U.S. city against the authority of that state’s governor. Now, Congress has proposed an increase in funding of $30 billion for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, most of which is allocated to increase the number of ICE agents. An additional $30 billion in funding could build a small army. An army of masked and armed agents acting with impunity and no accountability in cities and towns across America. This would essentially create a large pseudo-military force acting at the discretion of the president.

We have already witnessed ICE agents randomly abducting people off the streets, from homes, in schools, businesses, and houses of worship. Increase the size of this activity, and no one is safe anywhere in America. The potential of this action, coupled with the domestic deployment of the National Guard and U.S. military, could bring America to the verge of martial law. If the prospect of this doesn’t scare you, it should. Coming soon to a town near you.

Fred Shapiro, Margate

The roughly 49% of the American electorate who did not vote for Donald Trump lack an effective voice to counter this president’s most extreme policies and pronouncements. Although opposing views are often expressed by Democrats, progressives, independents, and apolitical individuals, they do not speak in anything that approaches a unified manner and, regrettably, sometimes sound like a cacophony of naysayers. To be effective, the opposition needs to speak together and to do so daily. Arriving at a single, unified message will not be easy, but the Democratic response to the president’s State of the Union can be used as a model.

This practice of immediate rebuttal should be repeated as often as necessary. A single individual needs to be recognized as the national spokesperson for those who disagree with the direction in which Trump seems headed. One way to achieve this goal would be to hold regularly scheduled news conferences, similar to the ones held by the White House press secretary. This would provide the type of unified messaging the Democrats have lacked. At the very least, it would siphon off some of the air in the room Trump now has all to himself.

Michael Berger, Maple Glen

Normalization of what had previously been considered abnormal has been widely feared since Donald Trump began his antics at the Republican debates in 2015 — long before his nomination. Today, a large majority of American citizens are shaking their heads (or simply shaking) over what is transpiring daily in our increasingly unrecognizable government. I call on those with a similar view to join me in calling out what we are seeing: It’s un-American. The administration is dismantling governing constructs, ignoring and supplanting public and private institutions, upending America’s posture and force for good across the world, and literally hurting hundreds of thousands of innocent Americans (as well as the neediest global citizens). That’s not normal.

In my eight decades, now retired after serving in the military and public and private sectors, I’ve never seen anything approaching this level of destruction. To point out how illegal much of it is has no effect, since these men are ignoring the law. While I hesitate to say it, it appears that the two-party system now is comprised of the Democratic Party and the Un-American Party. I never thought I could even think this, but it seems to be time for another House Un-American Activities Committee.

John Conrad, West Chester

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