Letters to the Editor: Why the Republican Party is worth saving without Donald Trump

To the editor: Donald Trump is not the Republican Party, but rather an aberration of it. Ex-Republican Kurt Bardella’s exhortative piece on becoming a Democrat is opportunistic and misguided.

Much would be lost if the United States became a country that prized homogeneous thinking, where people’s ability to rebel ideologically was punished by the norms of conformity.

With President Trump soon to be gone from the White House, it is imperative for Republicans to reappraise their values. Working from within the GOP, as proposed by Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, is far more effective than abandoning a party desperately in need of rehabilitation and a new sense of purpose.

Berta Graciano-Buchman, Beverly Hills

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To the editor: In his sagacious op-ed article decrying the Republican Party’s abandonment of its historical principles, Bardella quotes Romney as saying, “We were a party concerned with balancing the budget.”

I take issue with that comment, as it was meant to show the difference between the two viable parties.

The difference between the two parties is not about wanting to balance the budget, but rather on how you go about doing that. Democrats want to balance the budget by taxing the wealth of those whose accumulations are so great that they couldn’t spend them in 100 lifetimes, whereas Republicans want to cut spending on programs that assist Americans who have no accumulations.

And, I’d like to remind the senator that the last president who balanced the budget was a Democrat. Thank you, President Clinton.

Ron Garber, Duarte

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To the editor: It is never too late to become a Republican. I was a decades-long conservative Democrat, but the party left me behind years ago with its rush to the left.

The grand experiment of one-party rule in California has led us to having the highest personal income tax in the nation, companies (large and small) leaving for lower-regulation and lower-tax states, and poorly performing schools.

It is a good time to become anything but a Democrat.

David L. McDaniel, Capistrano Beach