LETTER: Trump gives reader nightmares

I have seen — how many? — presidents come and go. I recall Franklin D. Roosevelt especially because in the extremely conservative county where I grew up, people hated FDR. I absorbed the local attitude. So, when Roosevelt’s motorcade came through town, I actually turned my back on him. He saw me, too, and his smile faded for a moment.

Not proud of that.

Part of my early childhood was spent in Rome, where my family rented an apartment for a year. It was on a boulevard where Mussolini staged frequent parades. From the balcony I would drop laxative pills onto the fascists marching below. Why? Children feel the social climate; it’s not surprising that I instinctively disliked the posturing, the stagey gestures, the harsh shouting of the Fascisti. And I felt a deep foreboding, even at 5 years old. I knew that there had been a terrible war and that people feared a repeat.

That must be why the 2016 Republican choice for presidential candidate gives me nightmares. Where have I seen the jutting chin, the scowl, the arrogant glare? Where else have I heard speech aimed at firing up the worst in us? —Cecily McNeil, Kalispell