Thank you to George Smith for his piece “No friend of the outdoors” (April 8). His exposure of the rollbacks and repeals of our environmental protections by President Donald Trump is highly accurate.

What Smith doesn’t say is that Trump did not arrive and gut these protections overnight. Everything Smith mentions are the basic tenants of the Republican Party. They have tried to destroy the very planet we live on for years. As long as more and more money lined their pockets all was good. Greed is their mantra, nothing else matters.

Republicans are against health care, climate change, clean drinking water, everything environmental, basic human rights, our very future. They are all for big oil and planet pollution. They are all for massive numbers of guns in our communities. They are all for keeping the boot on people of color. They are all for filling the prisons. They are all for grabbing everything they possibly can and leaving nothing for the coming generations, not even caring for their own children.

Smith should in no way be surprised by our current president. Republicans have encouraged and welcomed his kind of policies for years. We are all the worse and are dying because of them.

Richard B. Clement
Pittston