Readers write
When will GOP lawmakers stand up to Trump?
I am a middle-class citizen, a wife, a mother, a substitute teacher and a moderate Independent, wondering how the Republican legislatures are allowing the executive branch to be so unchecked.
Where are the Republicans? Where are their voices?
Do they not see how our democracy is eroding, how our allies are pulling away from us, that federal law enforcement is policing our own people, and the dollar is becoming weaker?
A few of these GOP members may believe in all that Trump is doing, but I can’t believe that 218 representatives and 53 senators all feel that what is happening is the best for this country.
Are they so worried about their congressional seats that they will compromise their beliefs and morals? Are they not also citizens of this country? Are they not concerned for their investments, their children living in a broken democracy, and to see other world countries breaking ties with America?
Where are they? Why don’t they speak against what is wrong?
I ask them: Please speak up if not for me, but for yourself, your friends, your family, and your country.
TAMMY DUDASH, LAWRENCEVILLE
Unethical actions, disinformation are eerily familiar
Every day, we read in the AJC about actions by the administration that are illegal, unconstitutional, unethical and, at times, cruel.
In the 1960s, we lived in Germany, slightly more than 20 years after World War II. My husband was with NATO forces, and I worked for the Department of Defense in education programs for soldiers and military dependents.
We knew German nationals socially and professionally. They explained the Nazis era in various ways, saying it was a combination of avoidance, willful blindness and believing the government would not mislead or lie. There was an insidious creep of the movement until it was too late, with a significant fear factor involved.
Hitler’s team included a genius “spin meister,” Joseph Goebbels, a master of mis- or disinformation. Too late, people realized there was too much power in the hands of one individual who surrounded himself with loyalists.
From the good people that we worked with, we saw a combination of guilt, embarrassment, shame and disbelief at what had happened. We do not want this to happen to us.
Our German friends would say, “Wake up, stand up, find out, speak out while there is still that opportunity.”
LYN KIRKLAND, ATLANTA
