I used to say: show me the 16-year-old and I will tell you what kind of man he will turn out to be. I remember those I grew up with and they would not change because that was their personality. By that I mean their values, their bigotry, their ignorance, the very essence of who they were.

Psychologists have expressed it more scientifically and perhaps more harshly. They claim one's personality emerges between the ages of three and five. You have got to be carefully taught might seem hopeful for Oscar Hammerstein, now. He thought it had to be done by six or seven or eight.

I have never in my life felt more hopeless about the nation with millions of our fellow citizens convinced the most manifestly ugly, twisted, obdurate examples of humanity should be believed according to QAnon − whatever that is.

Robert Jordan

Waterford