Opinion | ‘Freedom From Fear’: F.D.R.’s Granddaughter Contrasts Two Presidents

To the Editor:

Re “The New Deal Is a Stinging Rebuke to Trump and Trumpism,” by Jamelle Bouie (column, nytimes.com, April 30):

In his first 100 days in office, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, my grandfather, encouraged us to believe in ourselves, to trust and help our neighbors, and to put the country’s stability and well-being as a whole at the forefront.

By contrast, the current administration has caused economic chaos at home and abroad, while exhibiting carelessness and cruelty to nearly everyone except billionaires. The early success of a presidential agenda should be defined by what it creates and not by what it destroys — the confidence in the American promise that it inspires, not the fear it sows.

All my life I have lived in the shadow — no, the glow — of the legacy of my grandparents’ leadership, ideals and public accomplishments. I am 77 years old, and I hope I live to see that legacy give rise to a reborn America that treasures the freedoms they enshrined: the freedom of speech and expression, the freedom to live one’s own faith, the freedom from desperation and want, and most especially, the freedom from fear.

Thank you, Mr. Bouie, for your clear declaration of what we must do and why.

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt
Embden, Maine

To the Editor:

Re “There Have Never Been 100 Days Like This” (front page, April 30):

The most dispiriting and shocking thing about Donald Trump’s so rapidly and thoroughly transforming the presidency into a weapon of revenge is not what he has done, but how he has been able to do it.

He needed people with legal knowledge to explain to him how to exploit and circumvent our laws. He needed government officials sworn to uphold our Constitution to turn their backs on their oaths and democracy. He needed millions of Americans just like us to support him as he dismantled everything that has made America America.

Government, foreign affairs and every aspect of our national life from business to culture to academia to the media are being shaped by a revenge that could have been prevented at any time, on every level, by a people and a country we thought we knew.

I will keep and preserve this breathtaking issue of The New York Times for my grandchildren and their children. If this continues, they will not believe what we once had, and willingly lost.

Greg Joseph
Sun City, Ariz.

To the Editor:

It’s clear that our Constitution, remarkably resilient as it’s been, was not designed to withstand the sorts of perversions that President Trump and his coterie have subjected it to.

Whenever (if?) we emerge from this nightmare crisis, we will need a stronger delineation of the separation of powers, including enforceable consequences for overreach.

David Murphey
Philadelphia

To the Editor:

If the president is looking to tell the truth about what he has accomplished in his first 100 days, maybe he could mention the fact that when he started, America was considered the leader of the free world and now because of his ham-handed actions and belligerent posturing we are not.

Michael Scott
San Francisco

To the Editor:

Even nonlawyers know what the term “statute of limitations” means. In President Trump’s world, what is the statute of limitations for blaming former President Joe Biden for any negative consequences of a Trump administration policy?

Almost every possible cause of action in the legal world has a time limit. Is there a time limit beyond which this president will accept responsibility?

Gregory J. Stamos
Woodbridge, Conn.
The writer is a lawyer.

Elon Musk’s Mars Fantasy

To the Editor:

Re “Could Mars Be Elon Musk’s Next Business Venture?” (On Politics: Musk’s Washington newsletter, nytimes.com, April 25):

How fitting that Elon Musk has designs on billions — and eventually trillions — of federal dollars for his Red Planet fantasy. Building and maintaining a small enclave of earthlings on Mars would be a mammoth undertaking, even for the richest man on Earth.

With an average temperature of minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit, no protective ozone layer, extreme levels of radiation and an atmosphere with one-hundredth the thickness of Earth’s, this is hardly an environment where humans can survive without constant and extremely costly life support.

But Mr. Musk’s distorted dream is to create a Martian settlement of a million people. The fact that he views this inhospitable planet as a possible human sanctuary is a reflection of how disdainful he is of our own planet’s extraordinary gifts.

This is a man who, together with his boss in the White House, has done more than any other human to strip away measures protecting Earth’s habitability. From decimating food aid and essential medical care to trashing efforts to protect our global climate, he is complicit in some of the most cynical government maneuvers in U.S. history.

Philip Warburg
Newton, Mass.
The writer is the author of books and articles about environmental justice and global sustainability.

Lab Animals’ Cruel Fate

To the Editor:

Re “Lab Animals Euthanized as White House Slashes Research Funding” (news article, April 30):

Experimenters lamenting that they will have to euthanize animals in publicly funded laboratories are pretending that they would have had a different fate. Animals don’t make it out of laboratories alive, with few exceptions. And before they are killed, they live in fear in metal cages and are burned, brain-damaged, cut open, blinded or poisoned or endure other horrors.

The experimenters are less concerned about saving animals’ lives than about saving their own funding.

The National Institutes of Health has been handing out $23 billion a year for experiments on animals that don’t help humans, and this needs to stop. Superior, human-relevant methods — including organs on chips, A.I. and tests using human tissues taken during medical procedures — offer real hope and eliminate the need to hurt or kill animals at all.

Katherine V. Roe
Salisbury, Md.
The writer is a chief scientist at the Laboratory Investigations Department, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Get Big Money Out of Politics

To the Editor:

Re “‘Don’t Be Afraid of a Fight’” (Round Table, Opinion, April 25):

This conversation about the future of the Democratic Party with four veteran strategists and reformers does not mention getting big money out of politics.

Large campaign contributions from the superwealthy give them a hugely outsize influence over politicians and what government does, often to the disadvantage of ordinary people.

When one billionaire can buy more political speech than tens of millions of ordinary people combined, we have a caricature of democracy.

Richard Barsanti
Western Springs, Ill.