The second Trump presidency is presiding over the betrayal of the American dream on a vast scale. Our record as a nation, while flawed in some respects, nevertheless has promoted equality, environmental enhancement, the health of our citizens, education for its citizens and equality of our people. The Trump administration is ripping apart our very fabric as a constitutional republic.

Trump promotes racial inequality, environmental destruction — if not catastrophe — collapse of our health system and an oligarchy which favors the super rich at the expense of most Americans.

I  received a doctoral degree from Cornell University in 1967 and, as an environmental scientist, I have observed numerous trends during the years since then that are worrisome to alarming. The Trump administration either ignores the trends or accelerates them at our peril.

The promotion of the destruction of our national forests, the encouragement of fossil fuel use and its health and climate impacts, the failure to address coral bleaching and other signs of oceanic collapse and the failure to address climate change and its very adverse impacts do not bode well for our planetary future. The current administration seems hellbent instead on enhancing its financial position at the expense of most Americans.

The Trump efforts to divide our nation with police state tactics and vicious attacks on people in the United States only obscures the importance of addressing the issues of critical importance. Alas, greed prevails.

Time is of the essence for altering our current self-defeating course.

Tim Zorach
Georgetown