Dear Editor:

The 2024 Republican presidential campaign platform is essentially identical to that of 2020: During the next four years, we pledge to do whatever Trump riffs on at his rallies. It is all about returning to a white-washed past, stoking fear and hatred in the present, and glue sniffing about the future.

The blueprint behind this vague platform is the 900-page MAGA manifesto, Project 2025. Written in large part by former Trump handlers, it sets out detailed plans to establish a Trumpist “deep state” that will impose presidential control over the most fundamental aspects of our lives: healthcare, education, marriage, intellectual freedom, justice and human rights.

No wonder Trump claims not to have read this deeply unpopular tome — “I know nothing about Project 2025” — yet he betrays his familiarity with it by tweeting, “I disagree with some of the things they’re saying.” The MAGA movement he created nine very long years ago has broken its chain and is hunting down its enemies farther and faster than his public persona will admit.

Willing to say and do anything to protect his self-image and reduce his chances of losing the popular vote in 2016, 2020, and 2024, his verbal contortions are a futile attempt to control the MAGA beast.

Like the degenerate Roman emperor Tiberius, Trump should admit that “Auribus teneo lupum”: I have a wolf by the ears.

Bill Hammond

Boothbay