Letter: Trump’s way is “commonly threats”

It is often said of President-elect Trump that he views relationships and interactions as transactional, personal, business, political.

That is true, but one must keep in mind that, to a bully which Trump is, his part of transactions are commonly threats, to wit, I will hurt you unless you do X for me. As we know, he got this from his father, a notoriously unscrupulous New York realtor.

It is an easy step to see Trump’s threats against Panama, Greenland, Mexico, and Canada, in that light. Trump may or may not be a fascist, but he is most certainly an imperialist, a colonizer.

I suspect that’s one reason why he took up returning Denali to Mt. McKinley.

In the late 19th century, America was in the midst of our most strenuous imperialist phase. That’s why Trump and many of his followers think of it as the golden age: no unions, no child labor laws, no social security or unemployment, Jim Crow, the final chapters of the Indian wars, government supporting the railroad barons to help conquer the West.

To Trump, taking Panama, Greenland, invading Mexico, dominating Canada are real estate deals, sovereignty be dammed, possession is 9/10s of the law, so sue me, I don’t recognize international norms anyway.

America the way it used to be, the way God intended it to be.

Donald Henderson

DeKalb