To the Editor:
For all the noise about left and right, most Americans agree: the system has tilted against ordinary people. Wealth keeps rising to the top while working families fall behind—and we’ve been seduced into blaming the other rather than asking who benefits.
The Epstein revelations are one more reminder of how differently the powerful are treated. Wealthy men exploited vulnerable girls and expected to walk away untouched—and, so far, they have. Meanwhile, a poor 19-year-old can face jail for a consensual relationship just months outside the legal line. The rules were never equal; they were built to protect those at the top. The obvious question is why this administration is so determined to prevent us from seeing what was really going on—and who was involved. Going after their enemies doesn’t really cut it. Let’s see all of it—regardless of what party someone belongs to.
We saw the same imbalance during the shutdown. Families who need help to keep their children insured were told by Trump, in effect, that they had to choose between healthcare of food. But tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy? Those were never on the table. Remember Trump railing against private insurance companies in ACA as corrupt? They are part of the ACA instead of a public option because the Republicans insisted. Trump has no plan—and never will.
This country could turn a corner with the smallest shift at the top—the 0.1%. Economists estimate that a modest two-percent tax increase on the wealthiest households could dramatically reduce poverty, strengthen schools, modernize infrastructure, and stabilize the health programs families rely on. Just two percent—barely noticeable to people with more money than they can spend—would mean clean water, safer roads, and medical care for millions. Yet instead of asking for that simple two percent, they get the tax cuts—and we get healthcare subsidies cut.
This isn’t about left or right. It’s about recognizing the pattern and refusing to be pitted against one another while the real power players walk free.
Demand a country that finally serves the people who hold it together.
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, Ca.
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To the Editor:
Over the last couple of Editorials, I recognize your pain and lack of enthusiasm for contrary political discourse, and the wish to remain detached as the present administration shows its true authoritarian intentions. Whatever the current state of affairs, I think the individuality of the American spirit, our disposition for fairness, and the refusal to be subject to a king, will prevail. But for the moment, all we can do is exercise our Constitutional right to gather the facts and protest.
Just so you know I read every word of “Realities,” I detected multiple instances of “beyond snarky” comments last week, including gratuitous aspersions on Democratic religious and moral principles, and attribution to the Party of worshipping “might makes right.” Which, ironically, is exactly what Trump is practicing. The “might” is all his as the “unitary executive.” You are aware of the vast overreach on immigration issues, rabid tariffs, his illegal killing of Venezuelans on the high seas, and his announced preparation to invade either/both the Congo and Venezuela, as another “national emergency.” Also, because the Epstein Matter is heating up, in no small part because of Trump’s massive efforts to divert national attention from it, and his Party is recumbent.
It’s impossible to imagine that other countries don’t recognize the ploy. The next president will have to be an exceptionally standup man or woman to remedy the international image damage we have suffered. If we have free and fair elections.
True Socialism has never succeeded outside a monastery, but how can you wonder why people are open to a different economic system when the current system, certainly since the 1980’s, has persistently favored the wealthy over the rest of the population? In a country with billionaires, in the “hottest country” and “richest country on earth,” ordinary people require government assistance in a wildly imbalanced economic landscape. When We The People are last in the line of consideration, why wouldn’t an alternative be weighed?
Every healthy dual-Party political system needs a truly Conservative voice, but that is not what the GOP now represents. It is a Radical Party, aiming to ignore the Constitution for the Unitary Executive president, and using institutions like the DOJ to prosecute Trump’s enemies, and reward people who do his bidding (Maxwell, Guiliani, Changpeng Zhao, etc.). Is the Republican Party willing to place the same powers in a Democratic president as it has in Trump? Or does it expect that future elections will be contrived so that possibility is non-existent? It is my opinion that the republic is in grave danger, aided and abetted by people who have no sense of conservation or conservatism.
I had to google Ross Calvin, founder of a bitcoin-mining firm, who is crowd-funding a massive statue of Prometheus to advertise American technological strength. It’s odd that you appear to despise Calvin, a bitcoin investor who wants to build a massive structure, and so has things in common with Trump. But at least Calvin’s proposed structure is not to honor himself, as is the Arc d’Trump.
We are in turbulent times. One good thing we can do is pay attention and call the evidence as we see it. It can be exhausting, and sometimes painful, but democracy demands our attention to survive.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.