Letters to the Editor: Could Trump’s violent Bible stunt give us President Biden and ‘Medicare for all’?

To the editor: Kudos to Michael Hiltzik for his fine history-laden column, “After Hoover’s police, like Trump’s, assaulted peaceful protesters, he lost reelection. Will Trump?”

Voters remembered the attacks ordered by President Herbert Hoover on protesting military veterans when they went to the polls several months later in 1932. They were not the only ones who remembered, however.

The activism of both the Bonus Army and Coxey’s Army (which was made up of Civil War veterans) was not lost on politicians in 1944 with World War II nearing an end. They knew there would be hell to pay should this much larger group of returning veterans find an economy offering them few jobs.

So, Congress passed the GI Bill, arguably the strongest economic stimulus in U.S. history.

Hopefully the violence against protesters near the White House on Monday will result not only in the election of former Vice President Joe Biden, but the enactment of Medicare for all and the Green New Deal.

Steve Varalyay, Torrance

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To the editor: Hiltzik’s column should be a clarion call to all voters. I was born in 1932, and in my 88th year on Earth, I am convinced that the GOP will not soon change. That may also be true of many police departments.

I was an officer many years ago in a city far, far away, and saw a complete disregard for the safety and welfare of minority citizens, often by the playground bullies who became cops. I left the force half a century ago to become a journalist and have watched as politics devolved into the tribal system it is today.

I doubt I will live to see the changes demanded by protesters today. The payments demanded by the veterans in 1932 were finally received four years later. If either house of Congress or the presidency is controlled by Republicans after the November election, the demands of today’s protesters will certainly not be met in four years.

The politicians continue to call for change as they seek higher office, but when it comes to race relations, I suspect the only change we’ll see are the names on the ballot.

Steve Arvin, Los Angeles