An Oct. 16 letter to the Daily Bee from Daniel Strayer was the most accurate, important and straight-from-the-shoulder piece of opinion I have read in ages. It ought to run in the Spokane Spokesman Review, the Washington Post and the New York Times.         

Locally, it was riveting because the writer has a Bonners Ferry address. The “Trump Country” billboard as one enters that hamlet on Highway 95 from the south has done much to discourage people with currency and common sense, people with money and intent on spending it, from visiting and shopping there. “As much as I like the book store, Under the Sun or Mugsy’s cafes, the historic Pelton Water Wheel downtown, or the comfortable, small-town feel of just walking around, do I want to invest time and money with insular, ignorant anti-Americans proud of promoting a modern Adolph Hitler?” Thanks to Mr. Strayer, my guess is that many of us, reassured that civility reigns, are planning renewed visits to beautiful Bonners Ferry.

Nationally in America, as Mr. Strayer notes, the Trump-inspired current culture of hate and aggression parallels the rise of fascism in Nazi Germany in the 1930s. This might be news to those responsible for the Bonners Ferry billboard, social failures who either know little of history or, feeling left in the dust, seek to help their demented role model dismantle American democracy.

Dr. Joseph Goebbels, who ran the propaganda machine for Germany during Hitler’s rise and then died with Adolph in his Berlin bunker as Russians and Americans stormed the city, promoted Hitler’s original Big Lie. TV’s Fox News profitably promotes that same deadly story today to gullible, largely unlearned followers who, lacking fulfillment (and perhaps never having known love from pals or parents) seek satisfaction through national sabotage.

TIM H. HENNEY

Sandpoint