Appeasing Donald Trump will only encourage him

So, we are not sliding slowly into a dictatorship, we ran towards it with open arms. Led by a 34 times convicted felon and sexual predator, who is all about revenge and retribution against anybody who dared to confront his widespread crimes or oppose him in any way.

Timothy Snyder warns against “anticipatory obedience,” that anticipating the demands of the dictator and following them in an attempt to avoid retribution, will work just as well as feeding a gremlin after midnight. Bullies from primary school to Trump and Putin work the same way, and appeasement only signals they can be even more extreme with no real consequences. Don’t give them an inch of our democracy without a fight.

Trump and his (possible) cabinet of billionaires are defecating all over “We the People” by pulling media stunts like renaming the Gulf of Mexico and threatening to annex Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal, instead of addressing the actual issues facing “we the people.” On top of that they abuse real life-and-death tragedies like the L.A. fires for political and financial gain because they don’t care about us or our country. People are dying in L.A. and they demand conditions for aid because California voted blue. While Democrats give disaster aid to any state, with the only condition being that there is a disaster.

Please legacy media, stop normalizing what is happening — stop white-washing the insanities of a Trump 2.0 administration by trying to make sense of their ridiculous proclamations, and nonsense word-salads. Let “We the People” know how tenuous their grip on reality and language is. Demand that even Republicans be adults and actually lead this great country of ours, instead of the breathless reporting on the constant repairs of their clown car.

— Regner Trampedach, Boulder

Boulder’s zoning changes are not right for our city

In regards to changing the zoning in single-family neighborhoods, I must tell you that my wife and I are feeling discriminated against. I have worked for 48 years in Boulder and paid a mortgage for 45 years in order to live in a single-family neighborhood. The neighborhood in which we live stands a good chance of being affected by the zoning change. We feel discriminated against in that we made a choice to live in this neighborhood and now we may be told that “your choice doesn’t matter, step to the back of the bus!”

We read that the reasoning behind this is to open up more affordable housing. As we see it, the only guarantee that this will result in more affordable housing is if there are provisions in the ordinance that require the duplexes or triplexes to be purchased or rented at the low-income or affordable rate, not market rate. Another provision would be that one of the units be occupied by the property owner. Without these provisions, we fear that the eligible properties will be used by developers or absentee landlords to line their pockets.

We also feel that one impediment to more affordable and low-income housing is the use of cash-in-lieu. I know that cash-in-lieu is mandated by the state, but if this council and other cities struggling with housing issues were to work to get cash-in-lieu eliminated, then the developers would be required to provide the much-needed affordable and low-income housing.

We feel that developing the area east of 30th Street or Foothills Parkway for higher density is a much better alternative than increasing density in single-family neighborhoods.

— Peter Arts, Boulder