My Canadian friends ask, “How is it possible that Americans could elect someone like Donald Trump?”

With embarrassment, all I can say is, “I don’t know.”

“Nothing mattered, in the end. Not the probable dementia, the unfathomable ignorance, the emotional incontinence; not certainly, the shambling, hate-filled campaign, or the ludicrously unworkable anti-policies. The candidate out on bail in four jurisdictions, the convicted fraud artist, the adjudicated rapist and serial sexual predator, the habitual bankrupt, the stooge of Vladimir Putin, the man who tried to overturn the last election and all of his creepy retinue of crooks, ideologues, and lunatics: Americans took a long look at all this and said, yes please.”

These words, by Andrew Coyne, a columnist with Canada’s Globe and Mail, ring true, not just for Canadians but for people all over the world.

In his editorial dated Nov. 6, he continues, “This is a crisis like no other in our lifetimes. The government of the United States has been delivered into the hands of a gangster, whose sole purpose in running, besides staying out of jail, is to seek revenge on his enemies.”

Since Trump was sworn into office, his disregard for the rule of law, American democracy and his vile and hateful rhetoric and actions do not reflect the America that I knew.

I agree with Mr. Coyne, “The damage Trump and his nihilist cronies can do — to America, but also to its democratic allies, and to the peace and security of the world is incalculable.”

Leslie Saxon West

Sequim