Readers write

The AJC also discussed his change of position on vaping because this industry now provides him financial support — caving to industry over our health. Shall we call this the “Trump Two-Step?”

Trump’s threats and intimidation approach is nicely satirized by Mike Luckovich’s cartoon on Trump’s threat to Iran: Open the Straits or I will do what I am doing to Americans. However, TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) Trump doesn’t back down on his assault on the health and finances of the average American. Trump’s favorite game is to break the rules and the law without asking for forgiveness: just lie, make excuses, claim presidential prerogative, or do the Trump ‘Two-step.’

In AJC coverage of his China trip, Trump’s fawning flattery to facilitate a deal didn’t seem to work with Xi Jinping, but Trump will project a win out there somewhere. Who is he kidding?

JOHN W. SHACKLETON JR., ATLANTA

Redirect some Pentagon funds to education

U.S. kids score lower in math and reading than European kids do. In the U.S., 10% or less of school funding comes from the federal government, leaving most funding up to a hodgepodge of state and local taxes.

Perhaps, rather than give the Pentagon a 50% raise, we should redirect some of that $500B to education. That is, if we’re really serious about educating all children in America, which isn’t a given, really.

DEAN POIRIER, LILBURN

Looksmaxxing fad can’t turn a boy into a man

When I was a kid in the 1950s and ’60s, comic books featured Charles Atlas advertisements and 97-pound weakling put-downs. The weight room gained an allure. Boys figured girls thought muscles were required. No one asked the girls what they wanted.

Now it’s the 2020s, and many boys dwell on their superficial image once again. The fad called “looksmaxxing” revives the fallacy that only through physical appearance can boys be winners. Many use steroids and mysterious drugs.

In America, the movement has distinct white superiority overtones. Boys consciously (or unconsciously) retard their emotional maturation, damage their health and latch onto beliefs that sexiness and manliness are synonyms.

Neither muscles nor a fine-tuned face make the man. A man’s ideas, words and behavior define him. In real life, they are what make a man a winner or a loser.

RICKS CARSON, ATLANTA