Readers Write: Trump’s Obama video, ICE, renaming institutions, Lutsen Lodge

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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Having beseeched corporate executives, with only mild success, to speak out against the immigration enforcement indignities, it’s time for concerned citizens to urge leaders of the faith community to address the gross improprieties of President Donald Trump.

They were on display in his peroration before religious leaders at the National Prayer Breakfast in the nation’s capital a few days ago. While engaging in his usual, tiresome ranting, he turned a day of empathizing faith into a regurgitation of his political agenda, accompanied with the usual diatribes that should have offended those attendees and others of a religious leaning, regardless of denomination.

Then, to cap off the day designed for extolling religiosity, he went on his Truth Social platform to mock President Barack Obama and his wife with a blatantly racist portrayal of them as apes. The indulgence was initially justified by the White House press secretary as just another one of those hilarious quips of his before it was taken down as a mistake that was made by a staffer, leaving wonderment as to what kind of “mistake” could have caused that.

Faith leaders ought not be able to look themselves in the mirror if they continue to tolerate this kind of antics, taking account of the model they create for others, particularly younger people across the board, religious and irreligious alike.

It’s time the religious community stood up for what’s right and stop putting up with such behavior.

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I read with great interest Trump’s response to concerns in reaction to his recent “The Lion King” social media post containing racially offensive material directed toward former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama. He acknowledged not viewing the video in its entirety before releasing it.

This response raised a great big red flag for me and hopefully for many others. We should all be deeply concerned about the exhaustive executive orders, laws, pardons, military directives, international treaties and other impactful agreements he has already signed and will sign in the future without reading them in their entirety.

Karen Petron-Broda, Sauk Rapids, Minn.

The current MAGA administration, obsessed with violently detaining and deporting immigrants from the U.S., has caused mayhem and economic ruin throughout Minnesota. Funny — I haven’t seen the employers of all these undocumented people being torn from cars, tear-gassed or zip-tied and brought to the indignities and discomfort of the Whipple Federal Building. I wonder why?

Contributing columnist Robin Washington wrote an opinion piece about a recent small protest outside a St. Paul hotel where Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were believed to be staying (“My stay at a hotel during an ICE protest,” Feb. 7). The protesters banged pots and pans in an attempt to disrupt the agents’ sleep. Problems with this tactic include:

Fortunately, according to the Washington piece, it sounds like the impact of this particular protest was minimal. Protesters should seek more effective means that are not wasteful of time and money. Where could you spend your time that may have an actual chance of helping? Delivering food? Providing rides? Contacting your elected representatives? Raising money? That’s not done by banging on a pan. That won’t get ICE out. Resist, but do it smartly.

Jessica Swartz, Minneapolis

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Amid all the chaos and angst and sleepless nights relating to the cruelty and lawlessness of the Trump administration and his ICE goonies, it made me smile to see the picture in the Readers Write section on Monday of the woman playing a nice shiny trombone in front of a hotel presumably sheltering ICE agents. If that joyful noise doesn’t get rid of ICE, then I suggest the instrumental nuclear option: Bring on the banjos and accordions. Then, goodbye ICE!

I see that Trump is withholding billions of rail funding from New York and New Jersey unless there is an agreement to rename Dulles International Airport and Penn Station after him. If it’s true, I think that they should make a counteroffer to name the prison system for him, since he’s done so much to relieve overcrowding.

James A. Booker, Mankato, Minn.

For countless families who came to Lutsen Lodge over the years, it was as clear to see as the noonday sun that an essential part of the lodge’s appeal was precisely that it was not like the expensive, overwrought, self-conscious lodges of Vail and Jackson Hole — and that it did not try to be. Sadly for Bryce Campbell (“A North Shore dream and the man who dreamt it,” Feb. 8), his own egomania clouded his ability to comprehend this. My mother and I first visited Lutsen Lodge in autumn of 2017, just before it changed hands. Its natural beauty was only underscored and heightened by the fact that its approach to dining (and lodge services overall) was guided by a humble, homespun, hardworking ethic of warmth and genuine care — true Minnesotan values. But once it changed hands, you knew right away someone was trying to make it into something it could never really be.

Hopefully Campbell’s tragedy is a stark lesson to other lodge owners in Minnesota who are dreaming of trying to turn their lodges into some overpriced destination for the well-heeled instead of cultivating subtle beauty and genuine quality that will endure, and which will be noticed by guests with the capacity to pay attention. That is to say, may other owners see in the life-ruining tragedy of Campbell that trying to turn a lodge into something other than what is in its nature is a perilous road. Or to put it another way, the great 20th-century theologian Karl Barth once wrote that God’s majesty is his lowliness.

And for lodge owners who can’t see majesty in anything but glitz, glamour and coastal accolades: It is a devil’s bargain indeed.