What the conviction of Trump in the Senate could achieve

I write in response to Bill Donahue’s thoughtful letter (“Don’t give Trump a platform,” Dec. 15), which suggests that the Senate dismiss the article of impeachment “on the grounds that Donald Trump will not be in office anymore.” That would mean Trump “will no longer have a platform in Congress to maintain his lies.”

All that is true, and the sooner the impeachment trial is behind us, the better. However, a Senate trial and conviction could lead to Trump being barred from ever again seeking the presidency or any other political office — and even losing his lifetime presidential pension and Secret Service protection.

I don’t know if there is other action Congress could take, short of a conviction in the Senate, that could achieve the same result.

MARGO HOWLAND-MASTRO

White River Junction

GOP lawmakers should be escorted from office

I thought this was the land of the free and the home of the brave. Yet after seeing the riot by a bunch of thugs on Jan. 6 — attacking our Capitol, a symbol of freedom — to protect one of the most unpatriotic people on Earth while he went back to the White House to gloat and watch it on TV with his family, I have to wonder.

President Donald Trump threw not only the rioters under the bus but also Vice President Mike Pence. The rioters were looking to hang him.

Yet Pence would not invoke the 25th Amendment to have Trump thrown out of office. And the Republican senators also protect their party, not the people who put them in office.

All the Republican lawmakers who didn’t object to the riot must approve of it, so they should be escorted out of office.

ROBERT POLLARD

Enfield

Bad things, too, come in small packages

The language and behavior of Donald Trump brings to mind an observation made by the Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr.: “There is no smaller package in the world than that of a person all wrapped up in himself.”

GEORGE SUTHERLAND

Grantham

Teachers should be in first vaccination wave

I am both concerned and angry that teachers are not getting vaccinated along with other front-line workers. Many parents are insisting on their children being in school for in-person learning, but no one seems to care about the health of the teachers who need to be there. It is disgraceful. Teachers are underpaid, no longer enjoy the great benefits they once had and now are expected to also risk their health. They should be in the first wave of vaccinations and instead are almost last.

ALINE ORDMAN

White River Junction

My ‘Ghost Dance’ comparison was flawed

I’d like to acknowledge that Forum contributor Frances Brokaw is absolutely correct to criticize my apparent comparison of the Native American “Ghost Dance” to the recent ferocious attack on our Capitol (“A Disturbing Comparison,” Jan. 12). The two phenomena have little if anything in common.

I had the misfortune to write and send in my letter on Jan. 6, before I had any awareness of what was taking place in Washington, D.C. When I saw what was occurring, I emailed the editor and said I was afraid my letter would look irrelevant as a result. He kindly added a phrase about the Capitol attack, but that unfortunately made it look even more as though I was likening the two.

Brokaw is right that the Ghost Dances were part of an extensive spiritual practice that included protests against many U.S. government abuses of Native Americans over the years. The recent demonstrations by white supremacists have absolutely no spiritual similarity to the Native American movement of the late 19th century.

The point I intended to make was that I see a logistical similarity between the two conflicts, where one side pulls out its entire armamentarium to protect its tradition and to fight off those of the other side, who appear to represent inevitable historical “progress”; in one case between Native Americans and the overwhelming whites, and in the other between what the hard-right stands for (traditional male supremacy, including firepower, and undervaluing Black people and women), and what the liberal Democrats do (a far more inclusive democracy that includes less social inequality and a more horizontally connected human society). There’s more to clarify here, as I realize I’m rather in the weeds, but I’ll leave it for now, with apologies.

NAN BOURNE

Woodstock