Editor,

This is in response to Mr. Wilferth’s letter of Feb. 12, 2025: “Comparing Trump to Hitler is tiresome.”

Mr. Wilferth, a self-described “’ignorant plebeian’” (some self-esteem issues there) who calls people like me sheep because I don’t believe in total selfishness, is confused about the Trump-Hitler comparison. Trump was praising and paraphrasing Hitler during the campaign, and a good chunk of his voters (maybe Mr. Wilferth) liked that; Elon Musk gives a salute pretty darn similar to the Nazi salute; JD Vance was just in Germany praising political parties that have clear and unrenounced ties to Nazis, past and present. Libtard mistake to notice? Or does “tiresome” describe how Trump feels from channeling Hitler?

As for the people he thinks have corrupted our (not “the”) government and USAID, I suppose he thinks it’s wrong or a threat to our well-being when we the people pay our fellow citizens to grow crops and produce life-saving medicines to help other, destitute people in the world (it cripples us to be kind?). Well, that’s his opinion; I suppose death for them is cheaper for us. That the poor will always be with us is nothing to be proud about or to resent. It doesn’t mean to ignore them. It means to always be as generous as you reasonably can be and as the need exists.

And while we’re on the topic of generosity, that $47,00 sex change operation in Guatemala, for example, that the lying spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said for the ever-lying Trump was from the USAID budget (the State Department did that), consider this. If it had been USAID money, that would be 0.000001175 of USAID’s $40 billion budget. Multiply that by 330,000,000 Americans, and all you’d need for approval is 390 of us to say OK. Might find that many people right here on Whidbey. Some people have needs I don’t have or can comprehend; being smug and judgmental helps no one, but it’s an attitude MAGA people have to the hilt and beyond.

Mercy is a benefit that pays its own way. The only people who could consider mercy an annoying and wrongful burden are every MAGA idolator and anti-democracy citizen like Mr. Wilferth, because then they don’t get to have everything their way. Lincoln was right: “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is not democracy.”

Try some generosity of spirit, Mr. Wilferth and all you MAGA people. It’s part of being grown up, and I hope always a part of my USA.

And next time you write, tell us something Trump is doing for someone else, even us.

John Seyfried

Bayview