To the editor:
Those of us who lived through the Vietnam era remember mass protest as a response to a catastrophic policy—a war that consumed young lives and was justified by deception. Today’s protests feel different. They are not aimed at a single policy mistake. They are a reaction to the conduct, language, and actions of a president who has repeatedly violated basic standards of decency and democratic restraint.
Opposition to Donald Trump did not arise from ideology alone. It arose from what Americans saw and heard with their own eyes and ears: a presidential candidate boasting on tape about sexual assault (e.g., “grab ’em by the pussy”), a sitting president publicly mocking a disabled New York Times reporter, a leader who noramalized cruelty as entertainment.
Then came January 6—a sitting president encouraging supporters to march on Congress as it carried out a constitutional duty, followed by hours of silence while a violent mob breached the Capitol. That was not protest. It was an attack on democratic process itself.
Americans also watched as Trump was found liable in civil court for sexual abuse and for defaming the woman who accused him. At the same time, credible reporting documented his long associations with known sexual predators—raising deeply disturbing questions, even as his defenders dismissed all scrutiny as partisan persecution.
Vietnam-era protests challenged what the government was doing. Today’s protests challenge whether the president himself respects law, truth, or human dignity at all. That distinction matters. When vulgarity, intimidation, and contempt for accountability become normalized at the top, protest is no longer radical—it is civic self-defense.
For those who once marched against an unjust war, the alarm now is sharper. This time, the danger is not overseas; it is to the norms and institutions that make democratic government possible.
Daniel Hopkin
Williamstown
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