Dear Editor:

I may be accused of being politically incorrect here, but white supremacists have every right to express their hate. One of the essential elements of freedom is toleration of another’s viewpoints. But with every freedom there is responsibility and consequences that we all must deal with.

In these troubled times we look to our leaders for moral and ethical guidance. The equivocation and mixed messages of President Trump and Governor LePage over this ongoing incitement to violence by these terrorist organizations is a morally corrupt failure.

I am not going to call these two gentlemen, whose behavior smacks of buffoonery, racism. It is their cynical manipulation of the oppressed wage earners to divide one against the other that deserves our ridicule and contempt. Holding out hollow promises of making America great while placing their thumbs on the scale for the privileged rich is becoming ever more transparent to the average voter.

The white supremacists are worthy of being ignored; law enforcement will manage any threat they pose. They, like the plutocrats who give them licence, are destined for the dustbin of history. And Trump and LePage will become tragic-comic footnotes in this experiment in democracy.

Fred W. Nehring

Boothbay