How to defeat Trump
Who can stop Trump? (4 December) outlined how his core supporters are mainly concerned about national security and immigration issues. To stop Trump, the battle must be taken to him on this territory that he has carved out. There is no other way, given how he has successfully – and very deliberately – managed to set the key grounds for the debate.
Praising liberal ideals, advocating for pluralism and multiculturalism, pointing out he has invalidated the constitution – these would normally work against normal candidates; Trump has proved he is anything but. His supporters have shown they are so disaffected by what they deem to be ineffectual ruling elites that they don’t mind being politically incorrect.
Candidates from both parties need to show how Trump’s policy ideas make him a threat to national security by polarising the American public and increasing the chances of home-grown terrorism. They need to point out how he is jeopardising American’s relations with key allies such as Britain, France and countries in the Middle East. And that America can’t lead on the world stage when the whole world can’t take a President Trump seriously.
The advisers in both parties would point out that it would be politically courageous for candidates to do this. They would risk Trump’s wrath in standing up to him so directly. But, then again, doesn’t the free world deserve a leader with the guts to do so?
Brendan Madley
Hamilton, New Zealand
• Liz Mair is quoted in the Washington diary: “it’s best that people who don’t like Trump and his policies ... effectively take out an insurance policy and do some work to try to actively undercut him.” This is sound advice not just for Republicans but also for Democrats and independents; all three groups might well, in 2016, be confronted with Trump as the Republican presidential standard bearer.
The Democrats need a presidential candidate who is, in as many ways as possible, the antithesis of Trump. Hillary Clinton’s net worth – reportedly between $30m-$45m – compared with Bernie Sanders’ reported net worth of $700,000, positions her closer to Trump’s economic status. In the Senate, Sanders voted against the Iraq war, bailing out Wall Street, and the 2001 Patriot Act; Clinton voted for them. Again, Clinton looks a lot more like Trump than does Sanders.
What’s the best way to insure that we don’t end up later this year with Trump or one of the other yahoo Republican candidates as our next commander-in-chief? Well, all the sane Democrats, independents and Republicans should pull out all the stops and work to elect Sanders president, thus insuring that Disney World isn’t moved to Washington DC.
John J Templeton
Amherst, Massachusetts, US
• Using precisely the same logic Donald Trump used in calling for a ban on all Muslims entering the US, it would clearly be reasonable to ask him why he would not also banish every gun owner.
Robin Carmichael
Leeds, UK
Root cause of climate change
Tim Flannery’s article (27 November) on the potential for new ecofriendly biological and chemical technologies to mitigate against fossil fuel emissions (eg seaweed farms, CO2 absorption by silicate-based roofing, and carbon negative cement) provides hope, but the much shorter article in the same edition by John Kabat-Zinn provides the fundamental solution.
We need to address not just the consequences of the climate change problem, but the root cause. The primary cause of it and most of the other environmental problems on the planet is our behaviour. Each and every human needs to live more slowly, less resource-intensively, and with more consciously awareness of social and natural environments. The sooner we adopt mindful living, the more rapid and effective will be all the contributions from these other potential technologies. Changing the way we think about how we should live is undoubtedly the most challenging problem that humanity faces.
And because that change directly addresses the root cause, it is exactly what we should be putting our greatest efforts into. More mindful, slower living simply must be a fundamental foundation to facilitating our sustainable existence into the future.
Paul Grogan
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
• While it is encouraging that your leader comment on saving the planet in a fractured world (17 December) predicts a reduction in inequalities, it follows climate scientists in failing to paint an adequate picture of the health impacts of particulate pollution from coal and diesel combustion at the local level. I experienced this as a house physician during the Great London Smog of 1952, which killed 4,000 people over a single weekend. It is ironic that during the recent Paris climate talks an environmental emergency was declared for Beijing, whose mayor last year said his city was “unliveable”.
Undoubtedly, slowness in getting started with the Paris recommendations is related to huge vested interests in hydrocarbons. Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, has stated that fossil fuel subsidy is public enemy No 1 to renewables. Unless all countries leave fossil fuels in the ground where they were formed, and go full speed ahead with renewables development, including energy storage and transport in batteries and anhydrous ammonia, the momentum of hope for a sustainable future gained by COP21 talks will be dissipated.
Bryan Furnass
Canberra, ACT, Australia
West needs change of mind
I felt overjoyed by Jürgen Todenhöfer’s enlightened article entitled Western bombs will fill Isis with joy (4 December). I have had many years experience working in the Gulf and several living and working with marginalised groups of Muslim background in France.
Some western countries will have to change their entire mindset if we are to avoid further attacks like we have witnessed in Paris. In France, where about 8% of the population is of Muslim background, social changes are needed to give these groups a stake in society. For example they should be more fairly represented in education, the police forces and the health sector. Relegating them to ghettos does not further social integration.
Western meddling in national politics in Iraq, Syria and Yemen has only made matters worse. All western leaders should listen to Todenhöfer and rethink the war on terrorism as we ourselves risk being perceived as terrorists by bombing innocent civilians indiscriminately from on high.
Katrina Osborn
Muscat, Oman
Briefly
• Oliver Burkeman, in his column on overfunction and underfunction in relationships (4 December), assumes Murray Bowen is a psychologist. Not so. He was an American psychiatrist who was a family therapy pioneer. He contributed important concepts such as reciprocity and complimentarily in relationships, which Burkeman references. The couples therapist in the What I’m really thinking section of the same issue would likely be familiar with Bowen’s groundbreaking work on inter-generational dynamics in relationship therapy.
Barry Trute
Nelson, British Columbia, Canada
• Thank you Reuben Cohen (Reply, 4 December) for expressing so well the responsibility of us all to have more respect for other animal species. In the UK at least, noticeably more people over the past year or two have been prepared to face up to this issue – particularly younger generations. Too many people are still wilfully ignorant of, or ignoring, the damage inflicted on the environment and on animals (human and other species) – but there is a groundswell of increasing awareness and willingness to improve things.
Phil Sleigh
Topsham, UK
• On anthropogenic climate change: it’s curtail or curtains.
R M Fransson
Wheat Ridge, Colorado, US
• Please tell Brenda The Civil Disobedience Penguin that the white creatures “oppressing and literally preying upon” her people aren’t polar bears: their homeland and hers are, er, polar opposites (18 December).
Donna Samoyloff
Toronto, Canada
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