On the subject of the Great American State Fair, President Trump recently stated:  “I am thinking about bringing the Number One Attraction anywhere in the World, the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime . . . DONALD J. TRUMP, to take the place of these highly paid, Third-Rate ‘Artists.'” (Sun Journal, June 18) 

Honestly, is the president capable of writing anything either astutely critical or not ridiculously prideful?

In regard to his denigration of the performers who declined to participate in the fair as third-rate artists: Funny — they weren’t artists of that caliber in the eyes of Freedom 250, the group behind the fair that Trump himself launched and whose CEO he appointed. Thing is, they had the audacity to spurn his mega vanity project — therefore, they suck. Obtusely, Trump failed to realize his public denigration was an implicit put-down of Freedom 250’s competence. 

Elvis? Comparison of audience sizes aside, the Guinness Book of World Records has named the trailblazer the best-selling solo artist ever. Contrariwise, historians rightly regard Trump as the worst president ever. In his lifetime, Elvis sold 250 million albums. Trump’s book, “The Art of the Deal” (1987), sold a million copies and was a bestseller — but that’s because its real author was journalist Tony Schwartz, who regretted writing it, later saying it would be better titled “The Sociopath.”

William LaRochelle
Lewiston