Editor, Gazette-Journal:

Today’s GOP is not the one your father knew. He would not recognize it. Nor would Dwight Eisenhower or Ronald Reagan. It is now controlled by its right wing and is no longer the dependable, competent party it once was.

Republicans are now viewed by many as gun-toting, violent, poorly educated white supremacists similar to the Dixiecrats of the late 1940s and early ’50s. They espouse all sorts of wild conspiracy theories too numerous to mention here.

Donald Trump is their unelected leader and probable nominee for president. They tend to believe anything he says, no matter how outlandish it is. He is like the fictional Svengali who was able to bend the minds of his victims, getting them to do his will. At Trump’s rallies, his “fans” treat him like a rock star, screaming and yelling their affection for him. This has happened before. In the 1930s, thousands did the same thing for Hitler and Mussolini. We now know that did not turn out well for the people ...