I loved John Balentine’s column, listing Donald Trump’s many achievements (“Trump’s legacy,” Jan. 15). Its brilliance lies in its being, basically, a list.

It is a rule of journalism that you cannot lie in a list, so what he says must be true, including the increased security we all enjoy due to “a more effective border wall.” Trump added 47 miles where no wall existed before. All this at a cost of only $15 billion. He ended the frivolous, $200 million – more than 1% of the cost of the new wall piece! – PREDICT program to detect and respond to pandemics. That move helped to pay for the necessary wall addition, which has confused alien invaders to such an extent that they are having extreme difficulty entering or even finding our country. We no longer have to experience sleepless nights worrying that rapists, murderers and traitors with foreign-sounding names like Drumpf, Kavanaugh, Hawley and Slatten will climb through our bedroom windows.

Trump’s legacy is indeed “complex.” After all, Benedict Arnold fought brilliantly for America before being wounded and betraying his country. In school we all learn the complexity of his situation and that he wasn’t really such a bad guy. Heck, who doesn’t enjoy eggs Benedict today? Similarly, Trump has many good qualities, like golfing, and would have fought brilliantly in Vietnam if not for heel spurs.

Also, the stock market is doing great, and as Indi Samarajiva said, “America is just a stock market with human beings attached. And the human beings are expendable.”

So, all in all, many of us may be Bezoserfs or dead from COVID-19, but our nonexpendable oligarchs are doing better than ever as interest rates remain low (not your credit cards’, ha ha), fostering borrowing for continued asset inflation. Our oligarchs are the best! Trump, you did well.

Ken Weston
Bath