Opinion: America is a country where someone like Trump can become a billionaire. We need to change that.

To the editor: Your series on President Trump failed to ask an essential question: How is it that someone like him can become a billionaire in America? (“Our dishonest president,” editorial series, April 2-7)

Trump says that he can fix the problems of America because of his experience. Well, he is experienced: As a construction baron, he has had to deal with local, state and federal agencies throughout his career, and the results show he must have been good at it.

But he has amassed an incredible fortune, leading me to my point: There is something fundamentally wrong, not just with Trump, but with America. What is wrong, I will not address, but I will say it can only be fixed through a conscious effort by every American to judge what he or she encounters using the principles upon which this country was established.

First and foremost among those founding principles, I would say, is fairness.

Robert Thomas, Miami Beach, Fla.

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To the editor: Your six editorials criticizing Trump are piercing and accurate, but what are the Democrats doing about our sad scene? The party’s leadership is not working together.

Tom Perez, Keith Ellison and the other officers of the Democratic National Committee represent as never before America’s ethnic and religious diversity — but non-Hispanic whites, who are a majority in 46 states, are under-represented. The DNC website asks Democrats to “tell Republicans in Congress where you stand,” but its own stand continues to be last year’s campaign platform, prolix and out of date.

Can one imagine Perez and Ellison getting together with, say, Sen. Tim Kaine, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Chuck Schumer and Sen. Elizabeth Warren to work on succinct Democratic critiques of Trump?

If not, and if Democrats cannot hang together, they may indeed hang separately.

Peter Bridges, Arlington, Va.

The writer served in the Treasury Department in the Carter administration and was the U.S. ambassador to Somalia under President Reagan.

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