Like its institutions, America is crumbling

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The Age’s North America correspondent, Michael Koziol, writes Washington “is a grand city of monuments to American endeavour and excellence” being turned by Trump “into monuments to his own ego” (“ In Washington, temples to Trump’s ego lie ruined. And another is on the way ”, 22/9).

The president’s heritage vandalism epitomised by the overblown White House ballroom, similarly monstrous triumphal arch, botched reflecting pool renovation and threatened demolition of the Kennedy Centre, pales into insignificance though alongside his other outrages. These include dismantling American democracy and the country’s machinery of government, incompetently and lethally enforcing immigration, imposing illegal and economically damaging tariffs worldwide, making war on Iran and exploiting the presidency to increase his personal wealth by more than $1.2 billion so far. Trump’s solipsistic ego, unleashed by his second presidency, seems on the way to destroying America’s credibility as a nation: politically, socially, economically and militarily. His egotistical tinkering with buildings and monuments in Washington, is superficial by comparison. Lawrie Bradly, Surrey Hills

Histrionics instead of leadership I am convinced that history repeats itself in many different ways over time if one has ever read any history and compared events. I refer to the falling of two empires in recent times, the fading hegemons of Britain and France, both of which have all but disappeared before my eyes since I was born as a ‘Baby Boomer’. Now, in such a short space of time, we have the passing of the American empire, crashing down like the last of those tripods in H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. The last teetering tripod is steered by a transactional Donald J. Trump, seemingly determined to wreck the world economy before he leaves with histrionics reminiscent of the now reviled Benito Mussolini, who once strutted the world stage. Derek Costello, Belmont

Some light amid the gloom Given the current state of the world, it is tempting to succumb to despair. Yet, this week in Washington and Jerusalem, two uplifting, positive events occurred. When Trump banned a number of left-wing news outlets from the president’s public events because he disliked their coverage, the rest of the news corp stood with them in solidarity – including right-wing organisations like Fox News. In Jerusalem, orthodox hooligans attacked a progressive synagogue and harassed the congregants. In the aftermath, several orthodox rabbis reached out in support of this synagogue. The proverbial glass is never completely empty. Sue Fisher, Coburg

Do as US media has done Finally, we see some solid action. The US media – ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox – (“ Networks refuse to cover Trump , 22/9) have stood up to Trump’s bullying of the press, and censorship of reporting that he doesn’t like. We have a similar situation.