It bears questioning, in light of the support the new president received in our recent election, by Evangelical Christians especially, if any experienced discomfort when they learned that Donald Trump wouldn’t place his hand on the Bible at his inauguration.

His vice president, JD Vance, did, as is expected of elected officials to the highest offices in our land, and for affirming to speak the truth in our courts.

As well, the president’s wife held two Bibles in front of him in that trenchant moment, but Trump held up his right hand only, leaving the other by his side.

Seeing or later learning this, how did Christian supporters feel about this slight of the Scriptures they rightly hold in esteem?

And later, within 24 hours, how did the officially supportive National Union of Police feel when Trump issued unrestricted pardons to the Jan. 6 rioters who assaulted over 150 of their own, on that fateful day in our history, leading to the deaths of six of them?

The answer is, it condemned the pardons — one might guess to their leadership’s, if not the group’s, remorse for their pre-election support.

Then atop all this in the same 24 hours, the new president signed a presidential act attempting to rescind the 14th Constitutional Amendment, which asserts individuals born in this country are citizens — a signing immediately challenged as unconstitutional by the attorneys general of 22 states, including Maine’s.

What will be the arc of decisions like these, over the next four years?

Paul Baribault, Lewiston

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