Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump, speaks during a rally coinciding with Pearl Harbor Day at Patriots Point aboard the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown in Mt. Pleasant, S.C., Dec. 7. (Mic Smith, The Associated Press)
Re: “Along with Donald Trump’s rhetoric, the stakes for 2016 have risen dramatically,” Dec. 9 news analysis.
Your article on the rhetorical excesses of Donald Trump compared Trump’s words to the racist rants of Gov. George Wallace and the anti-Semitic diatribes of the “radio preacher” Charles Coughlin during the 1930s.
This depiction of Coughlin as a “radio preacher” is misleading, perhaps intentionally so. Millions of listeners regularly tuned into the man who was universally known as Father Coughlin, the Roman Catholic priest who spread religious hatred over the radio. Eventually, and to their credit, the Vatican and church leaders were able to silence this emissary of prejudice.
The story’s efforts to putty over actual history does a disservice to your readers. Trust us to handle the contrast between Father Coughlin’s hatred and the church’s present-day message of compassion and acceptance.
John Gascoyne, Fort Collins
This letter was published in the Dec. 17 edition.
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