Letters to the Editor: Trump 11.24.16

Instant Runoff

Water Mill

November 15, 2016

To the Editor,

Do you believe that the majority wins? Most of us do. But so often in our elections the winner is decided by a plurality, not a majority. Why? Third-party candidates can siphon off enough votes in tight elections so that winners are deprived of clear (majority) victories. 

In the 2016 presidential race, the results in four decisive battleground states were potentially affected by the votes for minor party candidates:

In Florida, Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton 49 percent to 48 percent; Gary Johnson received 2 percent; Jill Stein had .7 percent, two other candidates totaled .3 percent. 

In Pennsylvania, Trump won 49 percent to Clinton’s 48 percent; Johnson had 2 percent; Stein had .9 percent, one other had .4 percent. 

In Michigan, Trump received 48 percent to Clinton’s 47 percent; Johnson garnered 4 percent; Jill Stein had 1 percent, two others captured .5 percent. 

In Wisconsin, Trump won 48 percent to Clinton’s 47 percent; Johnson had 4 percent; Stein had 1.0 percent, three others received .7 percent.

We can only speculate as to which candidate would have won if, in a runoff election, the minor party voters had a chance to vote for their second-choice candidate. But, Maine voters in this election passed a referendum that going forward the state will employ “ranked choice voting” to result in an instant runoff and a winner always decided by majority preference (instant runoff voting). In the event no candidate wins an outright majority, the second choice of the third place (and lower) finishers are added to the remaining candidates. This process can be done sequentially, eliminating the lowest vote-getter first, and continuing, to arrive at a majority winner.

In the above four battleground states, if all Jill Stein’s votes and half of Gary Johnson’s votes had gone to Hillary Clinton, she would have won those four states. (Clinton did win the plurality national vote: 47.7 percent to Trump’s 47.5 percent; Johnson received 3.2 percent; Stein received 1.0 percent, other candidates received .6 percent.)

Ranked choice or instant runoff voting is not a partisan issue! In the election of 1992, Bill Clinton won the presidency with 43.0 percent of the national vote to President George Bush’s 37.5 percent. In that year, the major third party candidate, Ross Perot, received 18.9 percent of the popular vote. In every state the winner had received less than 50 percent of the vote, and were there a runoff election (instant or traditional) in each state, the second choice of Perot’s voters in each state would have decided each state’s majority winner.

Arriving at a majority winner by ranked choice-instant runoff would have additional significance. There is a psychological mandate for the winner who captures a majority. Also, during the campaign, especially in primaries with several candidates, there is a greater likelihood that candidates will not insult each other because winning may ultimately depend upon the runoff votes from the other candidates’ supporters.

Ranked choice or instant runoff is openly supported by Senator John McCain, Senator Bernie Sanders, and President Barack Obama, and is already used in Minneapolis, San Francisco, Burlington, Vt., and five other cities. It has been used for years to decide national elections in Australia and Ireland and in London for mayor. It is used in electing student leaders at over 50 American colleges and also is used to select Oscar nominees for best picture. New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer has called for ranked choice-instant runoff to be used to avoid costly runoff elections; in N.Y.C., a runoff election can cost the city upward of $13 million to administrate.

Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. sponsored the first New York State bill for R.C.V. and I.R.V. to be used in statewide primary elections and all local elections. Southampton or East Hampton could be among the first local municipalities to use ranked choice or instant runoff in an election — perhaps for school board, town board, or trustees? If you want to see ranked choice-instant runoff tried in a local election, please let Assemblyman Thiele know: thielef@ assembly.state. ny.us.

STEVE ABRAMSON

The Right Dope

New York City

November 20, 2016

To the Editor,

While most of us voted for Hillary Clinton, it appears, all of us are now enrolled in Trump University. So, what is on the Trump U curriculum for the next four years?

For me personally, I suppose, as a straight, white, relatively wealthy, Christian male, the Donald has my back. Right? So I guess I got that going for me. I may have misunderstood what he had to say about those other people and or what he did say, in the heat of the campaign, he did not mean. Right? We shall see.

I am concerned about the Donald’s hands at the controls of our national security. The name on the plane is now Trump; he is the pilot, and we are now about to board as passengers. 

My specific concern is that these terrorists know how to execute the rope-a-dope strategy very well and they may now have the right dope. Just as Ali did to Foreman in the ring, the terrorists’ objective, via the rope-a-dope, is to create a reaction that helps their cause by damaging and disabling their opponent. 

The terrorists’ primary objective is to create the wrong reaction. For example, while the terrorist acts of Sept. 11 were horrific, bringing down the Twin Towers and causing the loss of 3,000 lives, costing billions of dollars, it was the reaction (invading Iraq) that did the most damage, causing the loss of over 100,000 lives, costing trillions of dollars. As we know, Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. It took our eye off the real terrorist targets in Afghanistan and left us with more terrorists and a big mess.

In his campaign, Trump’s reaction to ISIS was to demonize the entire Muslim world, which played nicely into the ISIS rope-a-dope strategy for recruiting. While the manipulation of the legitimate fear of the people may have helped Trump to get elected, it strengthened the ranks of ISIS.

Going forward, we need our president to be smart and learn the painful lessons of the past so as not to repeat them. Donald, please get some smart people to help you fly this plane.

Anyway, let’s all hope for the best.

JAY McGLYNN 

P.S. If you’re a neighbor of Russia’s, you may want to learn to sleep with one eye open.

A Reasonable ‘Them’

Bradenton Beach, Fla.

November 14, 2016

To the Editor:

My jaw dropped when I read Betty Mazur’s statement, “We really have to find out what is possessing these Trump supporters, they are not reasonable or logical. We have to try to understand them.”  

This statement embodies the thought process of most Democrats and media pundits, who just cannot grasp the American working middle-class frustration about promises made and not kept, about 

entitlements being handed out like lollipops at a party. I am a reasonable, logical “them” who hopes and prays that our new president will take us down a path that will continue to make us, and all those who are not “thems,” proud to be Americans.

VALERIE FLYNN

Rejected

Durham, N.C.

November 20, 2016 

To the Editor,

Oh my God, the sky is falling. We actually have a businessman who will be in charge of the economy instead of someone from academia who has never made a payroll. 

We have a president-elect who hopefully will cut through the bureaucracy at the Veterans Administration and fire the people in charge. 

Why shouldn’t he challenge climate change? They should not be able to dictate how we live unchecked. What are they afraid of? 

 Donald Trump won because he was able to tap into Democrat disenchanted voters, the ones Hillary left behind. She goes into coal states and tells them she is going to shut down their jobs? How smart is that? 

Under Hillary, the Democrats have become the party of Wall Street, big banks, and climate-change fat cats — exactly what they accused Republicans of being for the last 50 years. The third term of President Obama was rejected.

By the way, anyone see Al Gore? One speech and he has disappeared. Hasta la vista, Al. 

Congratulations to Wikileaks for exposing the real Democrat party.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. 

PHILIP MAYER

Very, Very Happy

Hampton Bays

November 15, 2016

To the Editor, 

In reference to your editorial page, dated Nov. 10, I’m not surprised at your bashing of our next president, Donald Trump.

You don’t even show the courtesy or respect of acknowledging Mr. Trump’s victory. If it were the opposite, Mrs. Clinton’s phony face picture would be on your front page along with a caption stating her victory.

I’m not going to vent anymore. I’m very, very happy Mr. Trump won, as did locally Congressman Lee Zeldin, and not leaving out Assemblyman Fred Thiele.

May God bless President-elect Donald Trump as he tries to unite very divided “united” states of America!

Yours truly, 

JOHN PAGAC

Trumped by Greed

East Hampton

November 20, 2016

To the Editor,

Thanksgiving is one of the most inappropriate holidays in the often-distorted history of the settling of America. A small group of Christian bigots bringing pestilence and misery to the local people are feted as a remarkable humane tribe who set the tone for the creation of our country. 

The love, inclusion, and charity of Jesus was never a part of the Pilgrim program, nor was it a part of any of the European settlers over the next 150 years. Inclusion, community, and commonality were trumped by greed, avarice, and egocentric individualism. We didn’t share unless we had to.

The saving grace for the country was the ever-expanding frontier that allowed people to get away from each other. Unfortunately, somebody else lived there and had to be disposed of. We did embrace immigrants (as we all were), always harshly and brutally, despite our need for their labor. Yet inclusiveness was never part of the deal, and every new group had to force its way, against almost universal opposition, into the mainstream. Almost no one had the right to vote when the Constitution was framed and justifiably so.

But as the country grew, and we ran out of space, we were obligated as a nation to allow almost everyone into the system. With the arrival of Marxism and socialism, some of it derived from the early Christian idea of “our brothers keepers” (long abandoned by the official churches), the quasi-human philosophy of free market individualism was forced to adjust to a movement of inclusiveness and commonality. The arrival of the public sector as more than a means of policing the community but providing for and protecting the people.

Enter Donald Trump and his Republican cronies (who have found their true nature in Trump). Racist, nativist, exclusionary, ranting about going back to the imagined moments of America’s greatness. Before Social Security, Medicare, pensions, workplace rules, when asbestos and polluted water were the norm. When blacks had the right but not the means to vote, and Latinos never imagined voting. When Italians were called blacks and marched by the thousands in New York in the 1960s for their rights. When the Irish were universally white trash before they let them become cops. Singing the praises of exclusivity not inclusiveness. Greed and wealth over sharing and mutual respect.

It took hundreds of years to transform the country and the government into a nation where equality was not a Thanksgiving fantasy, where the wealth of the country was distributed with some kind of balance and everyone had a shot of making their lives better. We weren’t a nation of blamers who saw our condition as a function of someone other than ourselves. The rightness of our whiteness didn’t make us better. Until last week.

Now, as Thanksgiving approaches, we embark or return to who we were before the deluge of collective well-being beat down our individualism, our nativism, our racism. It’s not that we had eliminated those things form our world, far from it, but we had entertained a desire to be better than we were, knowing that it was necessary.

In 1968 I remember sitting with a group of friends screaming “Pigs!” at the police cars that passed with their sirens blaring. It was mostly dumb and pointless, even though it didn’t seem so at the time. Today the White House would be a better target and absolutely the right one. 

NEIL HAUSIG

Watch Out, America

East Hampton

November 15, 2016

Dear Editor:

It was only fitting that after getting the November 2016 presidential election surprise and becoming morose and depressed at the result, that I should receive an email from a Trump supporter with whom I had been exchanging opposing views for months. It was the coup de grace, so to speak.

The email for the first time used explosive language and enumerated his real feelings about it all. Where he had been a strong supporter of Trump. he had usually fallen back on all of the TV and media arguments for his candidate. He never once allowed himself to become offensive or mean-spirited. I am sure he was never sure of Trump’s ultimate victory, nor were any of us, and he wanted to protect himself from a loss, so he played it somewhat safe,

But come the win, and here there was a slight change in the tone of his last email. I quote:

“I guess there weren’t enough Latinos, blacks, illegals, welfare recipients. gays and lesbians, Jews, and crooked politicians to get your girl elected. Too bad you will have to benefit from the new administration.”

Now that is vitriol, chutzpah, anger, angst, and hatred all rolled into one guy who had never before indicated he was a racist and white supremacist until Trump’s win brought him out.

Watch out, America.

RICHARD HIGER