Opinion: Make America great again, but don’t expect us to pay for it

To the editor: Boy, am I getting tired of hearing about people “tired of being written off by those in power.” This supposedly forgotten nation that the pundits cooked up to explain Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election are simply people who demand a great America at a discount price. (“A year after the election and Trump’s opponents still haven’t figured out why they lost,” editorial, Nov. 7)

They want massive tax cuts, a massive military and a massive social safety net all at once. They want closed borders, but they don’t want to pay Americans enough to pick their fruit and pluck their chickens for them. They want good, affordable healthcare to emerge from a system designed to produce rank profiteering. They want cheap consumer goods but elected a president willing to impose crushing tariffs to save a few hundred coal-mining jobs. They want a first-world nation at a third-world price.

They are an endless chronicle of contradictions, and the government is dysfunctional not because it doesn’t listen to them but because it listens to them too much and ties itself in knots trying to deliver the impossible to the ignorant.

Aaron Robinson, Torrance

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To the editor: I am puzzled by the continuous stream of attacks on President Trump by The Times Editorial Board, specifically your statement that “he is a disaster for the nation and for the world.”

What is so disastrous for the nation with a sustained 3% economic growth rate, a steady reduction in unemployment and a booming stock market?

What is so disastrous for the world by having a president with a solid backbone who is not afraid of addressing serious issues head on?

Jacques Beser, Newport Beach

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To the editor: I respectfully disagree with the naive belief that we Americans “ought” to be able to “mutually hammer out policies and programs” in the nation’s best interests. That may have been the hope that President Obama expressed nine years ago, but that hope is long since gone.

We live in a nation torn apart by a culture war that can only be resolved by one side winning. Americans must decide if they want to live in a theocracy dedicated to the protection of corporations and the wealthy, or in a nation that values diversity, environmental protection and polices that expand opportunities for the vast majority of its citizens.

I am all in favor of “listening, stock-taking, reconciliation and renewal,” but not with people like Donald Trump, Jeff Sessions, Roy Moore and their many millions of supporters who represent an existential threat to the Constitution.

David Lundquist, Palm Springs

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To the editor: As a civil servant for more than 20 years, I know that government is not there to make a profit, but to protect people and provide essential services.

That said, people look to their elected leaders for guidance, performance under pressure, fairness, integrity and transparency. If an administration consistently falls short of its stated promises, then we have no one but ourselves to blame. Russia did not cast a single ballot in our election.

If the claim is that we somehow got fooled, then we must make the changes necessary for it not to happen again. Our country has been great, is great now and will still be great after this administration has seen its final day.

Dan Mariscal, Montebello

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