I am writing this letter to the editor to commend our senator, Susan Collins, for having the courage that most other Republican senators lack for calling out President Trump’s series of tweets regarding the duly elected Democratic congresswomen.

The senator is absolutely right that while we may disagree, sometimes strongly, with other representatives on policy, that does not give one the right to insult their ethnicity. Sen. Angus King’s remark also cuts directly to the point – “everyone in America is from somewhere else except the native Americans.” And this includes President Trump, whose ancestors are from Germany.

Finally, with regard to those Republican senators and Congress members who choose to remain silent or speak in support of the president’s ill-conceived remarks, I say they would do well to take a quote from Shakespeare’s play Hamlet to heart. Polonius gives the following advice to his son Laertes – “This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

Samuel Rosenthal

Portland