Obvious Trump supporters and/or conservatives have sent me emails, accusing me of being unfair regarding former President Trump and attacking American conservatives. They were referring to my thriller The Patriot Oath.

Some critics have also left 1 & 2-star reviews on Amazon for The Patriot Oath based on their allegations that I said something political in my novel about Trump and/or conservatives, that I didn’t say (or write) in this thriller since it was the narrator or fictional characters that did that — if they did it. Those reviews are also included in this post.

FIRST email

DATE: Sat, June 11, 2022, 9:55 PM

“I found the book to be well written with a plausible plot. I was, however, offended by the subliminal (and sometimes overt) attack on the American Conservative. The obvious political bias turned me off. It diminishes the effectiveness of the story.”

L***y

Next, the 1 & 2-star reviews on Amazon

Joe Robinson

1.0 out of 5 stars Almost 5 stars

Reviewed in the United States on December 9, 2022

Verified Purchase

I was really enjoying this book right until the time the author threw his political views into the story and they did not even make sense within the book. I would like to thank the author for his service I will not be reading any more of his booksw

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Chuck Yarling

1.0 out of 5 stars Lloyd Lofthouse's new book was a gem

Reviewed in the United States on November 24, 2021

Once you started reading it, this was one book that was absolutely hard to put down. It has great characters, action galore, and about a group whose mission is to preserve the American republic. That made it hard not to put it my top ten books I read this year!

Yes, it was a gem right up to the near-end when Lofthouse wrote totally unneeded and unnecessary personal political comment in just one paragraph. It was definitely a surprise to find it in what should have been a great book! [NOTE from Lloyd: Readers will not find that personal political comment from the author because it does not exist in this thriller.]

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Kindle Customer

1.0 out of 5 stars No More!

Reviewed in the United States on December 7, 2021

The book wasn't too bad BUT I really take exception to an author trying to push their political agenda off on me. Will not be reading any more of his books. [Note from Lloyd: readers will not find me as a character or narrator in this thriller pushing a political agenda.]

This brought the whole story to an end for me. If there is a sequel, I am not sure i want to read it.

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B Reader

2.0 out of 5 stars A good, limited, political book

Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2022

You can tell from just the preview in Amazon that the author blames the world's problems on Trump. (NOTE from Lloyd: The “preview” on Amazon doesn’t mention Trump.)

There is not need for him to go there except to push a political view without giving a basis.

He is a good author, but let uninformed politics get in the way. Hopefully he will either leave that out or write a political justification for his beliefs rather than merely slandering Trump.

If this author world have leaned right instead of left, he would have been slammed with bad reviews without mercy.

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Todd Kinsey

2.0 out of 5 stars Strains credulity to the breaking point

Reviewed in the United States on November 15, 2021

Part thriller, part romance novel, part political statement; The Patriot Oath fails at every step of the way.

The book begins with an interesting premise; a soldier (who happens to be Spec Ops) returns home because his sister has been raped and failed by the judicial system. Had the author stayed with this premise, the book would have been much better.

Our protagonist, Josh, is like many young men and joins the Armed Forces straight out of high school (including myself at 17 years of age). Josh starts out as a Force Recon Marine and goes on to become a Navy Seal.

From here we start straining credulity when Josh somehow becomes a Green Beret. I am sure this has happened but it’s highly unlikely.

Then we begin with the dangers of “right wing” militias, when to my knowledge it’s “left wing” militants such as Antifa and BLM that have been rioting and tearing apart cities across America. I won’t even get into the damage and destruction that “eco terrorists” have caused globally.

The author does touch on a couple worthwhile issues, including PTSD and and human trafficking. He accuses President Trump of building cages to keep children in, when in fact, it was President Obama. (NOTE from Lloyd: I didn’t accuse former president Trump of building cages to keep children in. That was a pull quote taken from an opinion piece that actually appeared in an Irish newspaper that one of the thriller’s characters thinks about. Fintan O’Toole wrote that for the Irish Times.)

There’s no question that there is an issue on our southern border and it’s be exacerbated by our current president.

So Josh and his team form their own militia, which I guess is okay with the author, because the government sanctions them to start covert military operations against American citizens rather than using the FBI or local police departments.

The only thing that kept me from giving it one-star is that I do like the author’s writing style.

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To discover where Trump is mentioned in the thriller, I did a global search of the words President and Trump, since the thriller takes place in 2018, when Trump was president.

In a thriller with more than 70,000 words, president appears six times.

Page 44 – Josh says, “George Washington was the first president to take it (the oath to defend the U.S. Constitution.) Once you take that oath, there’s no expiration date, even if you reach a hundred, and anyone that breaks it is a traitor.”

Page 108 — Cheète says, “SAD can be directly tasked by the president to conduct covert military missions: raids, ambushes, sabotage, targeted killings, and unconventional warfare. It’s also one of the most mysterious branches of operatives in the world. Most of them came from Delta Force and Navy SEAL Team Six. In fact, Josh was invited to join, but he turned them down.”

Page 119 — The thriller’s omniscient narrator says,

Even though President Truman ordered the agencies not to hire former Nazis, they actively recruited them anyway.

Bran had retired from the CIA at seventy-three in 2009, the day before Barack Obama took the Constitutional Oath of Office. He refused to serve under an African-American president, but he didn’t want to stop doing what he loved. So, he’d taken his skills to the private sector and found Charles Tweet.

Page 126 — “This is Shadow One,” Linda replied from San Francisco. “My contact said Bran retired the day President Obama was sworn in for his first term. When he left, he took some of his people with him. No one knows where they went and what they’re up to.”

Page 136 — Breathe, he thought. I have to be calm before I go through that door. He didn’t think Riley was aware of his invisible combat suit. It was so secret that no one outside of DARPA, including the President of the United States, knew it existed. This was the first time it was being tested in actual combat, with only two in existence.

Now for Trump who was mentioned five time in the thriller.

Page 2 — Josh hadn’t heard this before. He knew times were tough for small farmers thanks to Trump’s tariffs, but he’d never heard of Frankenfoods. “How were they forced?” he asked.

Page 95 — A minor character in the novel tells Dr. Tate (both are African Americans), “Dr. T, this is Montana, and your safety is my responsibility. That means keep a low profile and avoid trouble. There are too many white extremists in this state, and with Trump in the White House, they’re bolder than ever. It’s safe to say that this state is not friendly to Jews and Black Americans like us.”

Page 113 — Cheéte looked coy. “Maybe, but don't mention that to my Crow wife. She’s a born-again Christian.” He paused for a moment, then added, “But not the Trump type.” With a sorrowful expression, he continued, “See what the White man has done to our culture?”

Page 140 — Mia understood why Josh wanted her to move fast. She’d read a recent piece in The Irish Times written by Fintan O’Toole that said, “Babies in cages were no ‘mistake’ by Trump but test–marketing for barbarism.”

The trafficked children Josh had rescued in Montana had to be undocumented. Suppose Trump’s US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents got hold of them. In that case, they’d be sent back to the countries they’d been abducted from and end up dead or kidnapped again.

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There it is. Every time the words president and Trump appeared in the thriller. The pages for these pull quotes may not match the eBook or paperback, since this global search was from the editor’s final draft before publication.

I also ran a global search for the word conservative. It was used once in the thriller at the end of chapter 10.

SECOND email

Date: Thu, Dec 7, 2023 at 3:29 PM

Dear Mr. Lofthouse,

I read The Patriot Oath and enjoyed it enough that I plan to read more of your books.

I do, however, object to your mischaracterization of President Trump.  I know of no credible evidence that he was involved with "white supremacist" groups or misused the powers of the presidency outside of his constitutional authority.

There is, I believe, PLENTY of evidence that his successor Joe Biden has throughout his tenure done things far outside the Constitution, even possibly engaging in criminal or even treasonous acts.

I doubt that my comments will do anything to change your opinion but I urge you to examine the evidence with an open mind.

I look forward to future books.

God bless you and yours,

B****y

[NOTE from Lloyd: “Former President Donald Trump has officially endorsed a plan, created by a man who has self-identified with the Oath Keeper militia, that aims to have Trump supporters consolidate control of the Republican Party.” - ProPublica]

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Author’s end note: