To The Editor:

Mr. Angelo’s letter to The News follows an altogether too frequent pattern of wild accusations and speculations about President Trump. Similarly, his letter conveniently lacks any details of specifically what and how the president will accomplish these nefarious deeds.

Perhaps Mr. Angelo could tell us how given our marvelous and time-tested Constitution featuring separation of powers and checks and balances Trump will be able to turn this country into an autocracy. At the same time, perhaps he could define what he means by autocracy.

I would also be most interested to know how given the Senate role of advice and consent, and the embedded administrative bureaucracy that a president could “own” the executive. Please Mr. Angelo, share with us the master plan that will produce this outcome. Oh, and please be sure to include how this plan would prevail given the separation of powers.

As to dominating the judiciary, this has been tried, but only by Democrats, and fortunately those attempts failed. Jefferson tried to impeach Justice Chase in 1803 because he was a Federalist, but despite his party’s dominance in the Senate, it failed because even that early the importance of an independent judiciary was recognized. Similarly, in 1937, Roosevelt despite an overwhelming majority in the Senate failed to “pack the court” for the same reason.

Our constitution works.

I am particularly curious as to how Mr. Angelo thinks Trump will “brand for posterity.” What exactly does that mean, and how is he going to do it?

Finally, I’m curious to know how he will pick his own successor. Has Trump and Mr. Angelo figured out how to bypass the American electorate and the Constitution?

Please Mr. Angelo, could you with some measure of specificity share exactly how all your dire predictions will come to pass?

Don Vose

Naples