Letters to the Editor | Jan. 20, 2025

On this Inauguration Day, I am thinking of my father. He was raised in a poor but loving family during the Great Depression. He enlisted in the Navy after Pearl Harbor and served in the Pacific during World War II. After the war, he proudly worked for the FBI for nearly 30 years. He was a lector at his church and devoted to his family, a true member of the Greatest Generation.

I am thinking today about what he taught me, through his example, about being a good person. The personal qualities and values he embodied included decency, civility, honesty, integrity, justice, duty, service, hard work, fairness, compassion, respect, kindness, generosity, modesty, and faith in church and country. I see none of these in our new president. Donald Trump is the exact opposite of how I was taught to live my life. I am astonished my fellow Americans would choose a man of such low character to lead our nation. It leaves me anxious and sad, but I was also raised to never lose hope. I believe that someday in the future, we will have a president our children can look up to. Unfortunately, just not right now.

David Breen, Philadelphia

It amazes me that there is nothing in our Constitution addressing the qualifications of someone who wishes to be president regarding criminality. Every government job in the U.S. requires a background check. We are about to have someone who is a convicted felon in charge of the White House, which is absolutely unprecedented. How did our elected officials wind up permitting this to occur? Going forward, will we allow anyone who can talk a good game and hoodwink the populace into believing he’s something he’s not?

Jules Enatsky, Jenkintown

As a Philly parent, supporter of youth sports, and believer in adult growth and development, I was disappointed to read Mike Sielski’s column about what A.J. Brown “should have done instead” of reading a book on the sidelines. It seems Sielski used the moment to try to be funny and snarky. But Brown’s decision to read a book about becoming a better competitor and human is something we should celebrate. We want kids to play sports with growth mindsets and emotional resilience, so let’s show them how professional athletes work to do that, in all the different ways they do it. We want the next generation to be informed citizens, so let’s celebrate books and reading — period. We want thoughtful newspapers to survive in the age of Instagram and rapid responses, so please write columns that meet a teachable moment and build on it, instead of mocking it.

Liz Squires, Philadelphia

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