While putting forward a plausible approach, vote for principles not a person, the author of a recent letter to the editor couldn’t have picked a worse argument for giving Trump another chance. What he neglected to do was rate Trump and the Trump party on the principles. Here’s a few examples.

A Constitutional government protected by laws and their enforcement — Trump continually mocks and violates the Constitution he swore on a bible to uphold. Withholding aid already committed by Congress to Ukraine if they did not produce false information to influence an election, violating Articles I and II of the Constitution, which bars federal officeholders from profiting from their position, and viewing himself above the law.

Free elections — According to the Constitution, voting is a right and a privilege, and Trump and his party are working to make it hard to vote and conduct a free election by limiting ballot drop off boxes, spreading lies about the integrity of mail-in voting, encouraging voter intimidation, pulling funding and resources from the postal service, and working to limit mail-in voting during a pandemic.

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The ability for anyone to rise above their circumstances and become successful – Trump party tax cuts only benefited the top 1% and increased the wealth gap in this country, trade wars cost jobs and farmer’s livelihoods, and working to take health care away from 29.8 million people if the Affordable Care Act were repealed.

A strong viable military — Trump has multiple times undermined our military leaders, mocked gold star families and those who have given their lives for this country and lied about paying respects to fallen soldiers at Dover Air Force Base.

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Left out of the article were upholding democracy (see voting rights suppression) and protecting our citizens (over 221,000 deaths so far) from COVID-19 to which Trump has said “it is what it is” and “I don’t take responsibility at all.”

This is just scratching the surface, so please don’t try to pass Trump off as upholding core principles of our country.

To use the writer’s coach analogy, would you continue to employ a coach who is a pathological liar, takes no responsibility, has no game plan, is not a leader, openly cheats, cares about only himself, bankrupted multiple teams, is $400 million in debt and is only concerned about enriching himself at the expense of the players, fans and integrity of the sport? Not my kind of coach.

Mike Koponen
Steamboat Springs