Sir , – Breda O'Brien's plea for "People of faith to move away from Trump" will undoubtedly fall on deaf ears (Opinion & Analysis, November 12th).
Donald Trump’s campaign targeted the US Catholic vote, and it succeeded as 60 per cent of the white Catholic electorate voted for Mr Trump as against 37 per cent for Hillary Clinton. This vast white Catholic support for Mr Trump no doubt was a important factor in his electoral success.
During the final days of the US presidential campaign, Mr Trump had a high profile on Catholic media promising, if elected, among other things, to appoint “pro-life” supreme court justices.
In an October letter to the participants at the Catholic Leadership Conference in Denver, he wrote that “on issues and policies of greatest concern to Catholics the differences between myself and Hillary Clinton are that I will stand with Catholics and fight for you, unlike Hillary who has been openly hostile to core Catholic issues for a long time”.
Some important US senior churchmen, like Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver and Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, stated that Mr Trump was a “more acceptable choice for Catholic voters”, and this advice percolated down to many US Catholic white voters.
This 60 per cent of Catholics chose to ignore what Pope Francis had said about Mr Trump on his way back to Rome from Mexico last February, when he said in no uncertain terms that “a person who thinks only of building walls, whatever they may be, and not building bridges is not Christian . That is not in the Gospel”.
If they ignored what Pope Francis had stated about Mr Trump, no amount of pleading with them now to “move away from Trump” will succeed. – Yours, etc,
BRENDAN BUTLER,
Malahide,
Co Dublin.
A chara, – It seems to me that already Donald Trump is showing himself capable of disappointing just about everyone – his detractors by not being as belligerent as they believed he would be, and his supporters by not being as belligerent as they hoped he would be. – Yours, etc,
CHRIS O’KEEFFE,
Waterford.
Sir, – With electoral turnouts in key votes in the US and the UK this year at 58.1 per cent and 72.2 per cent respectively, isn’t it time that representative democracies examined the Swiss model of compulsory voting? At least then we could say with confidence that “the people have spoken”. – Yours, etc,
CORMAC MEEHAN,
Bundoran, Co Donegal.
Sir, – The success of Donald Trump’s tactics of denigration, smears and outright lies guarantees their repetition by other electoral candidates both in the US and in Europe. Voters need to be ready next time, and there will be a next time. – Yours, etc,
MARY DOYLE,
Bray,
Co Wicklow.