I am a lifelong and surviving hippie of another generation who has never given up on the dream of world peace. If human beings are going to survive, they must recognize their cultural differences and embrace the reality that none of us are perfect. Religious, political and economic imbalances only blur the fact that we are all alike.
From America’s perceived enemies like Iran, China, Russia, North Korea and others, people universally only want the same thing: to live in peace, embrace their families and raise their children. Our adversarial governmental systems and military weapons are a constant threat to those goals.
If we human beings are going to survive, we must throw all those ideological things away and embrace the fact that we all need each other. If we don’t, we are doomed.
— Mel Theobald, Chicago
What must aliens think of us?
Finally, the government has released its declassified UFO files. Imagine aliens arriving here, and lots of folks do. What must they have thought? A planet that is inhabited by humans who kill each other off at alarming rates. We slaughter those who dare to believe in a different God. We have wars over territorial disagreements, and hundreds of thousands are killed. We kill each other over jealousy, money, skin color and scores of other insane reasons.
Why haven’t we heard from any of these distant beings? My guess is they report back to their homelands after concluding that there is no intelligent life on the Planet Earth.
— Bob Angone, Austin, Texas
Democrats’ misunderstanding
I recently had a Facebook debate with someone who was promoting cutting off all ties with one’s Donald Trump-supporting relatives. I responded that my Trump-supporting relatives are decent people and I didn’t want to add to the rancor of the world.
There are a lot of memes these days about Nazi Germany and how if you’re not fighting against Trump, you’re the same as the Germans in the 1930s. I’d like to address this.
In the early 1930s, when German elections were still fair, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party never got more than 37% of the vote. The typical German was not a Nazi. The problem was structural. No other party was able to get a majority.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by almost 3 million votes. She lost the election because the Electoral College is based on federal representation. Every state gets two votes based on its senators, no matter the population. Iowa has a population of 3.2 million; California’s is nearly 40 million. The fact that small states have the same number of senators as more populous states is what skews the Electoral College. It doesn’t matter if I argue with my MAGA relatives. The problem is structural.
In terms of the 2024 presidential election, Democrats were delusional. Pundits even now continue to blame Joe Biden for not dropping out sooner. The truth is that Democrats are too dumb to understand Democratic nominee Kamala Harris never had a chance of beating Trump. Not for a moment. It doesn’t matter if she had had another year to run. She was never someone who could have won.
Democrats who want to be self-righteous about their MAGA relatives, or sit back in their plush armchairs and diagnose Biden as being senile and blame his aides for hiding it, need to wake up. This is about power. It’s a blood sport. We’re losing because Democrats don’t understand power. They’re essentially dumber than MAGA supporters. They want to bring a Bundt cake to a gang fight and think they need sweeter frosting instead of a knife. They think Jon Stewart’s comedy or California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s cute sarcastic tweets accomplish something.
Good luck with that.
— Amy Crider, Chicago
History of disenfranchisement
In light of the recent developments regarding the destruction of voting rights and representation across the country, now is a good time to remember that recent history is barely history. Anyone now over the age of 70 was alive when Civil War veterans were still alive. Anyone older than 61 has lived during a time when many Black people fought and died for the right to vote that had been promised to them a century prior, and anyone over 58 has lived at a time when someone could be legally refused housing on racial grounds. One hundred years passed between the Civil War and the civil rights era, yet the struggle for the simple right to vote and to be adequately represented continues.
The Virginia Supreme Court has thrown out a referendum on congressional representation, passed by the people in order to counter President Donald Trump’s explicit call for more gerrymandering. The Louisiana legislature has eliminated an elected position in New Orleans — only after the people elected a man who was falsely imprisoned for nearly 30 years. The U.S. Supreme Court recently further diminished the 1965 Voting Rights Act by allowing racial gerrymandering under the poor guise of partisan gerrymandering.
If one thing is certain regarding these actions and similar ones, it’s that historians will rightly judge these breaches of voting rights and erosion of representation as shameful continuations of the American tradition of disenfranchisement, one that has carried us from at least 1865 to 1965 to now.
Numerous Southern states are proudly continuing a significant tradition of their forefathers by passing laws that they know will disproportionately strip Black people of representation and voting rights. This tradition is so American that it is even found in the Constitution — enslaved people each were counted as three-fifths of a white person for purposes of congressional representation.
We are the direct descendants of that tradition, and we have clearly failed in ending it. We will have earned the historians’ judgments.
— Ethan Feingold, Chicago
It would be a shorter list
Instead of the Tribune printing the names of people President Donald Trump is suing, it may be just easier for you to print the names of the people he is not suing. That list may be shorter.
— Nancy Morton, Harvard
Trump is the people’s tenant
There are efforts to permanently stop the construction of President Donald Trump’s palatial ballroom. Certainly we taxpayers must not foot the bill for this monstrosity. But neither should we be left with the bill for repairing the damage his unlawful demolition of an entire wing of the While House will require.
Trump must be held accountable for restoring the East Wing to its previous condition. He might use the donated funds already amassed, but no monies should be included in Congress’ budgets or ever come out of the pockets of United States taxpayers. But Trump must be held personally accountable. He is our tenant, and, as such, he is responsible for all damages he caused to White House property.
If Trump were a tenant anywhere else, he would have been evicted months ago.
— Pamela Harrison, Chicago
We aren’t the Soviet Union
The federal tax credit scholarship program provides a way for students to choose varying educational options. Free education through high school was a great idea as way for the U.S. to build the greatest nation. As we know, it takes many diverse hands.
The demand that all students follow the same educational scheme is reminiscent of what I used to read about the educational system in the former Soviet Union, which is now defunct. That should be a lesson in itself.
— Jim Halas, Norridge
Offering an assist to Putin
Pulling thousands of our troops out of Germany, or anything else that depletes our forces in Europe, plays into the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin — and he didn’t even have to ask us.
You’re welcome, Vladimir.
— Larry E. Nazimek, Chicago
The world is cursing at us
Many articles and political cartoons have noted the impact of higher oil prices on the U.S. consumer. I have not seen any that point out that oil prices have risen around the world or the impact that has on our national image.
The president likes to say that the world is no longer laughing at us. That is probably true. I’m pretty sure they are cursing.
— John Hepp, Chicago
The stories of decay, greed
April’s inflation was 3.8%. America is offhandedly disregarding science. President Donald Trump is groveling in China. We’re losing a war that Trump started, one that flung the global economy into crisis. We’re on a downward slide.
I listen to music all the time, but I sometimes forget the wonderful storytelling of Bruce Springsteen’s songs. He describes the lavish as well as the tragic, the stories of the vanishing, once-abundant American middle class. I wonder if he would ever tell the story of the decay that accompanies the swollen one percent, the feckless tech bros, the insatiable greed of the financial sector and the venality of our politicians — all neatly characterized by our president.
— Jim Arneberg, Hoffman Estates
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