Free Press readers

Here’s a novel idea for you: Use your considerable influence to support your president! He won the election. Stop using your space as a bully-pulpit for the losers. We former Democrats don’t like the way our party was going. Start looking for ways for the moderates to once again have an active voice.

Patricia Barolo

St. Clair Shores

Stand against fringe groups Trump embraces

I read with some amount of revulsion Sunday’s story “Church Militant Influence Grows.” Church Militant hides behind religion to push propaganda and hate mongering. Are you kidding me? This is not any religion I recognize. But why did this disturb me so?

Normally these extremist group just seem crazy with a capital C. But the exact same brand of crazy looks a lot more mainstream now that President Donald Trump has named Steve Bannon, who was executive chairman of Breitbart News, a website for the “alt-right,” to chief strategist and senior adviser. This extremism is now entrenched in the National Security Council and a constant voice in the ear of the president.

Now more than ever we need our lawmakers, on both sides of the aisle to make their voices heard — to voice outrage that our commander in chief is legitimizing these kinds of organizations that would tear apart the very fabric of our society if they had their way, under the guise of religion.

It does not matter which way you lean, whether left or right — we need to stand together as Americans, as church leaders, and as lawmakers to denounce the kind of hateful bigotry that the Administration is condoning.

Margaret Baxter

Bloomfield Hills

None of the above

Who would have thought that I, a flaming Republican, could find something in common with Louis Farrakhan, Minister of the Nation of Islam? Last Sunday at the Joe, Farrakhan told thousands of supporters that he had withheld his presidential vote from both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Same here. And neither of us should feel lonely. According to a Free Press article from November 25th, “an estimated 85,000 people [in Michigan] cast ballots but did not make a selection in the presidential race.” How else can you vote “None of the Above” in an American political contest?

Randall Keils

Kalamazoo

Trump’s successor would be scary, too

Brian Dickerson’s column last week about using the 25thAmendment to relieve us of Donald Trump misses an important point. If we get rid of just Trump, we are left with Vice President Pence, probably a worse fate. Also, he strikes me as being even more vindictive and retaliatory than his boss. Even though Hillary Clinton gave up too soon on her characterization of the basket of deplorables, they are still with us, masquerading as the voice of America (see the popular vote). We’ve had almost a whole month to see that the new administration is making the U.S. the laughingstock of the world, rather than its leader. Please, someone, make our country great again.

Philip Marcuse

Birmingham