I was amused by one reader’s objection to Democratic lawmakers not standing in honor of the little boy who had been sick and wanted to be a policeman amid the torrent of lies that was President Donald Trump’s speech to Congress earlier this month.

The objection served to highlight the Trump administration’s exploitation of children to soften its image and divert attention from its cruel and lawless would-be dictatorship. Given that Trump demonstrably hates Black people (the child was Black) and cares nothing for sick (or hungry or abducted) children, his hypocrisy was breathtaking.

Likewise, Elon Musk rarely appears on camera without slinging around his own young child as if to say, “I’m just a regular dad who can’t afford a babysitter (not the self-dealing, Nazi-loving, wantonly destructive monster you think I am).”

Noting Musk’s “dad” act, one disillusioned Trump voter suggested he’d turned government into “a reality show.” Musk’s child, by the way, is named X Æ A-Xii, which says volumes about how Musk regards people: as robots, cyphers, logarithms, but definitely not human beings with actual needs, feelings and, in many cases, needed expertise.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Pam Bondi has announced that vandalizing Musk’s Tesla cars is terrorism. Presumably vandalizing other kinds of cars is just vandalism, while vandalizing the U.S. Capitol, battering police officers, and threatening murder is “patriotism.”

Clearly, we have way bigger problems than “heartless” Democrats not standing up to honor a vulnerable child with big dreams when our Felon-in-Chief cynically and hypocritically used him as a prop.

Kathe Geist

Charlemont