Letter from an American attorney
ABOUT GOLFING WITH DONALD TRUMP
Dear Narain,
I have finally been able to read your commentary about golfing with Trump. It is a well-written piece, and I am glad you wrote it. I agree with nearly all of the points you make about communicating with those you may oppose or disagree with. Indeed, as a mediator for more than 30 years, I strongly believe in communicating about differences as a way to find common ground, but the normal rules do not apply to Trump, in my view. Trump does not engage in rational discussion or dialogue. His statements and actions, and his large reservoir of tweets and social media posts, coupled with his incurable inability to engage in a serious give-and-take discussion, disqualify him, in my view, from consideration for a golf game.
Yes, walking the fairway with Trump might offer some openings to meaningful discussion, but his record demonstrates unequivocally that he is incapable of any meaningful or serious discussion. He turns any attempt at such communications into opportunities to boast about himself or rail against those who do not support him. He bullies his way through conversations or attempted conversations by constantly interrupting and talking about what is on his mind, usually unrelated to whatever triggered his comments. He has demonstrated too many times to list his unwillingness and, likely, an inner constitutional inability to listen to others and engage with the issues they raise. He is, in a word, not a person capable of being influenced or touched in any way by an attempt at conversation.
The examples you give of other presidents and the benefits or potential benefits that came from their willingness to speak with and meet with their adversaries do not, sadly, apply to Trump. That is not what Trump is about. He goes into meetings totally unprepared and ignores accepted facts and falsifies known facts to come up with his unhinged comments, policies, and directives.
I agree that history provides many examples of diplomacy and discussion working together to achieve an outcome that might otherwise not have been achievable. Trump is not a person who would or could use communications with an adversary to bring about progress on any front. I am speaking not from antipathy toward Trump, though I find him to be a despicable human being, but from an objective analysis of the Trump we have seen in operation. I have read quite a number of books on Trump, including examinations of his early history as a business fraud artist. He was never a business success. He squandered the hundreds of millions of dollars his father gave him and managed to bankrupt six companies. He found “success” only after NBC gave him stardom with The Apprentice, and he parlayed that into a public perception of competence. There has never been any. You must forgive my rant, but this man should be shamed and exposed at every opportunity. He will not change, but perhaps at some point, enough members of the voting public will realize they have been duped to abandon Trump and his acolytes.
Your state in your commentary: “A widespread diffused anxiety that talking to people we oppose is itself a kind of betrayal. But if conversation threatens a person’s convictions, it means that the convictions were never as strong as they felt. Strengthening them requires contact with the alternative, not distance from it.”
I agree with the above statement, but it does not apply to my view of not wasting the time to speak to or meet with Trump, particularly if that would give him an opportunity to use any such meeting to falsely legitimize some action or policy that he has pursued. He is in office because he has mastered the demagogic arts as Hitler and others have done before him. To that extent, he is more than merely a deplorable person; he is truly dangerous, and no one should engage in any conduct with him that he can use to further his deception of the public.
I offer my comments as your friend to better explain my thinking about Trump.
By the way, the Bill Alford you reference in your article is an Amherst ’70 classmate and friend of mine. We lived across the hall from one another during our freshman year. Bill is an exceptional scholar and thinker and a true heavyweight in his field. I am glad you are familiar with him. I only see him now at reunions, but he is a regular, as am I, at our five-year reunion gatherings.
Scott McGee
Norwich, Vermont
August 1, 2026