While trolling for votes during the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump asked, "What do you have to lose?"

Fast forward to 2020, and the grim answer to that question is 100,000 deaths due to COVID-19. Unlike the sobering description offered by the New York Times that this mounting death toll constitutes an "incalculable loss," President Trump shamelessly declared during a recent Fox TV interview that, "we've done...amazingly well."

That delusion is hardly comforting to the families of those whose lives have been tragically lost due to his negligence. Oblivious to human suffering and grief, he wallows instead in self-adulation. Meanwhile, this president's ignorant rejection of all the pre-pandemic warnings that would have spared the nation has resulted in the unemployment of a staggering 39 million Americans. In short, instead of "Making America Great Again," Trump has led us to another recession.

In his 1980 quest for the presidency, the late President Ronald Reagan asked a question, "...are you better off today then you were four years ago?" When Trump stands for re-election the electorate would do well to recall that question and respond in the same way it did when Reagan won by a landslide - "Hell, no!"

Jack Welch

Ledyard