To the editor;

As the U.S. stock market experienced an historic decline on April 4, as a result, without question, of the massive global tariffs that President Donald J. Trump has arbitrarily imposed on our trading partners, causing much concern and consternation throughout our great country, as well as the world, President Trump quite disturbingly, but in pure Trumpian fashion, decided to take the rest of the day and the weekend off in order to indulge himself by playing golf, which was very disrespectful and troubling, indeed.

President Trump’s recent aforementioned actions, sadly, appear quite reminiscent of the Roman Emporer, Nero, who during ancient times, inexplicably, elected to play a musical instrument while his capitol city of Rome was destroyed by a massive fire.

Please recall that during the most recent U.S. presidential election that Trump often predicted that if a Democrat (either President Biden or Vice President Harris) won that the U.S. stock market would crash. It appears that such indeed is the case at present for President Trump, with the stock market quite possibly heading for a crash, along with a financial recession looming in our future.

As a result, President Trump, who was recently re-elected as a result of his promise to vastly improve our economy, when in reality the reverse has occurred since his return to office, with consumer confidence, reportedly, already reaching a 12-year low as a result of the current Trump economy.

Incredibly, the massively egotistical President Trump continues to refuse to concede that he was legitimately defeated in the 2020 election, when all the empirical data has indicated that the aforementioned election was unquestionably perhaps the most fair and legitimate election in our nation’s history.

Also, as a result of Trump’s role in the violent insurrection on the U.S. Capitol that occurred on Jan. 6, 2021, which, if Trump actually believed his outrageous and totally unproven claims that the 2020 presidential election was somehow “rigged against him,” such, undoubtedly would have been pursued through the legal system and not through a violent coup attempt.

With that in mind, I would like to equate the 2024 re-election of the insurrectionist Trump, as to that following the end of the American Civil War that Jefferson Davis, who had served as president of the Confederate States of America during their bloody war against the United States of America, that he would have been permitted to run and been elected as president of the United States.

Thankfully, that did not occur.

Richard Hord

Martins Ferry