Letters to the Editor: Trump/Clinton 10.13.16

American Racism

East Hampton

October 10, 2016

To the Editor:

The story of race and racism in the United States is essential to the American experience. From the first settlers who began the destruction of 15 million Native Americans, through the Civil War and the history of slavery, the multitude of laws and civil rights amendments, through the wars in Vietnam and the Middle East, racism is consistent and resistant, like a virus that develops immunities each time another medicine to stamp it out is developed. Racism so permeates our culture that we are at the point where we don’t know how or from where it comes.

American racism has always derived from economic benefits, sustained by re ligious and governmental fabrications. Yet we see ourselves and our history as everything but racist, probably because once most of the ethnic differences from multitudes of immigrants melted into a homogeneous casserole, abusing them was no longer profitable. Yet for people of color, race remained the essential divide between people who were okay and those that weren’t. Be as poor, as uneducated, as miserable as you can, but at least you are white.

In the 1860s slaves were valued at 65 percent of all wealth in the U.S. The economy, North and South, thrived and depended on it. Owning slaves and their endless progeny was the most extraordinary investment for capital and labor. The economic reality of slavery was mind-boggling. This idea allows us to understand why the war about slavery and the refusal of the country to let it go were so powerful. One hundred and fifty years after the war, we are still finding ways to manipulate workers to be able to reap the extraordinary benefits of slavery.

The issue of transference becomes essential in understanding how an economy moves from slavery to forms of labor that require remuneration. Slowly, pain­fully, we increase wages, benefits, and working conditions until Big Business figures out that labor closer to the slave model exists outside the country in huge quantities. The supply of cheaper labor serves as an inspiration to cheapen our own labor market by eliminating unions and stripping workers of their benefits. And as we readapt the slavery model to U.S. workers, we have the added benefit of transferring their wealth, because slaves didn’t accumulate wealth.

Much of the slave economic and social model was done under the guise of fair markets and reams of garbage about working hard and good values. Enter the birther movement. No pretense — nothing covered up. Pure, unadulterated racism, an ugly mix of white supremacy and the Ku Klux Klan. Even with the president’s birth certificate in hand they attacked relentlessly, letting everyone know that race was the only issue they were concerned with.

Naturally, Donald Trump, as the birthers’ titular head, has not shied away from his core racist commitment. There is no aspect of his political agenda that is without it. It’s not about calling Mexicans names or building a wall, but about his core belief in the rightness of whiteness. Racism had been frowned upon on a public level. Sub rosa behavior like voting rights actions and systemic segregation were always acceptable. But the birthers are another story, blatant, up front, no holds barred, and proud as they could be. The kind of racist piggery that might make the Nazis proud.

We deride them as foolish, misguided, ignorant. But maybe it is us who are foolish, misguided, and ignorant. Or maybe not? Like Trump, are we also racist pigs?

Let’s get the social order back in place. Let’s make America great again.

NEIL HAUSIG

Endorse Donald

Montauk

October 5, 2016

Dear Editor,

Endorse Donald Trump for president.

BOB FICALORA

Stood Her Ground

Noyac

October 10, 2016

To the Editor,

The Donald show was a disgrace and presented our country as a banana republic. In his world view, most of the problems in the country if not the world are all Hillary’s fault — good red meat for his base, but baseless in fact. 

Bringing up Bill Clinton’s past as a debate highlight has nothing to do with the issues facing our country in the future. It was an in-vain attempt to take the focus off his obnoxious conduct.

Hillary stood her ground and presented an inclusive message, not one designed to tear our country apart. 

Some conservative blogs claimed that Donald won. That may be true if you view the episode as a wrestling match, not a serious debate on the issues facing the next president.

ED JABLONSKY

Toxic Obscenity

East Hampton

October 4, 2016

To the Editor:

I am pretty tired of the media wasting their time and ours “analyzing” the toxic obscenity known as Donald Trump. The truth is pretty simple, and very obvious.

He is a walking cesspool. Each time he opens his loose, flabby, old, spoiled-baby mouth it emits a cloud of noxious sewer gas. Every word, every speech is a spew of poisonous, projectile diarrhea.

That, I think, says it all.

PATRICIA AYEARST

What a President Is

Amagansett

September 29, 2016

Dear David, 

I pass on snippets of conversation heard during the recent presidential debate:

Georgia Rose: “Gammy, who is the man with the ginger hair who looks like a pudding?”

Liam: “Gammy doesn’t like him.”

Georgia Rose: “He looks like Tigger. Why doesn’t he like Miss Piggy? I love Miss Piggy!”

Liam: “If I threw him on the mat, I don’t think he could get up.”

Georgia Rose: “He looks like somebody stuck in an air hose and blew!”

Liam: “This is an American presidential debate.”

Georgia Rose: “It’s poo poo Faber!”

Liam: “Gammy wants the blond lady to be president.”

Georgia Rose: “Vote for me!”

Liam: “You are 6. Do you know what a president is?”

Georgia Rose: “A president has a dragon, a catapult, and a puppy!”

Liam: “Vote for her!”

    All good things, 

DIANA WALKER

Trump’s Negatives

East Hampton

October 3, 2016

Dear Editor,

Republican thinking in 2015 about the presidential race the next year was that they had to reduce Hillary Clinton to defeatable size and reduce the potential of poor and middle-class ability to get to the polls.

First, conduct Benghazi hearings as many times as possible and get Hillary to testify under oath. Second, make voter ID requirements as stringent as possible; reduce number and availability as well as location and time period of voting as quickly as possible. Third, find a suitable candidate to support.

Well, they accomplished 1 and 2, but ran a cropper with number three. Trump, having been picked on and humiliated at the Washington correspondents dinner by President Obama, who was ticked off by the “birther” activities of the alleged billionaire, decides to run for president, probably to get even. 

Then, lo and behold, this excuse for a legitimate candidate walks into a perfect storm of positives for his venture. The country is rife with widespread anger at Washington, especially amongst non-college-educated white males looking to destroy the status quo, even if it means propelling a lethal fraud into the White House. Republican hopefuls materialize from the woodwork one after another, resulting in a pack of candidates all lacking one requirement or another, none of them nearly as media-savvy as our seller of the Brooklyn Bridge. Too many applicants running into themselves, Hillary Clinton getting gobs of bad publicity over running two computer servers for her emails, and an electorate screaming for change,

Trump was not nearly conservative enough for the Eric Erikson, George Will, Mark Levin bunch, and a split in party support cropped up. The Sean Hannity-Ann Coulter bunch ran to support Trump and the Erikson-Wills-Jeb Bush wing abandoned him.

Fortunately for Clinton, the candidate himself, Mr. Trump, has feet of clay and an overworked egotistical personality to match. He has no soft-sell manners, he is as uncouth as a used car salesman, he doesn’t have the money he says he does, he has a penchant for lies, and he tops it off with a severe case of the “I’ll get even if it takes me forever” mentality.

So we come to 30 days before the election and this unlikeliest of all candidates has in fact caught the wind and is sailing full tilt toward his goal with no adverse bad news, past history, or present gaffes interfering. But, as almost always happens, this man’s plans are being intercepted and unraveled by cumulative faux pas one after another, and a sort of acid reflux of temperament and personality — or, as my mother used to say, “Man plans and God laughs.”

Basically, Trump’s negatives finally began to overwhelm the fortunate environment that held him up as a possible president. He began to implode, failed to gain any hard-copy newspaper support, scared his fellow officeholders to death, thinking he would drag them all to oblivion, and just generally lost steam. He even changed campaign leadership teams three times, and then failed to heed the advice and counsel of any of them. Why would he? He despises people who question his judgment (especially those with normal or no hair).

And so, with fingers crossed, I predict a Hillary win in November unless she experiences a catastrophic negative event.

But please vote for Hillary anyway.

RICHARD P. HIGER

Cut the Man Loose

Southold

October 6, 2016

To the Editor:

This is for my Republican friends on the South Fork, all decent people, who might be tending toward Donald Trump. What is it that you know that has escaped everyone else?

More and more voters, Republicans prominently among them, are concluding that Trump is the most unqualified candidate ever nominated by a major party. No two ways about it, the man is vile.

That’s hardly a partisan conclusion. The Arizona Republic, by no means a Democratic house organ, has endorsed a Democrat for the first time in its 128-year history. It said Trump is totally unfit. The Manchester Union-Leader, a reliable voice of Yankee conservatism, just hates Trump. The Wall Street Journal is already saying it was a terrible mistake to nominate him.

So what does it take for you to cut the man loose? 

Some Trump backers just want to watch him turn everything upside down. I don’t know anyone that irresponsible. Other backers worry about Supreme Court nominations. Some Republican leaders say that once elected, the party can “handle” him. But they’re kidding themselves. History teaches that the president controls the party, not the other way around.

And they’re playing with fire. Trump is thin-skinned and vindictive. He boasts that when hit, he hits back 10 times harder. Are you truly comfortable with his finger anywhere near the nuclear button?

How could any woman, any mother or daughter, possibly vote for Donald Trump? What mom or dad would want their son or daughter to grow up to be like Donald Trump? Let’s get real. Donald Trump has no place in the Oval Office.

So, my Republican friends, I urge you to swallow your reservations, if any, and go vote for Hillary Clinton. Party loyalty has its limits. It’s important for Clinton not only to win, but to win big. We can’t give Trump any room for claiming he lost because the system is rigged. (Because it ain’t.) He’s already making that excuse even before we’ve voted. In impolite English, we have to kick his butt.

FRED ANDREWS