Letters to the Editor: Why hand over an entire letters page to supporters of a racist president?

To the editor: More than 70 million Americans voted for a racist. On Nov. 14, the L.A. Times handed over its letters page to a selection of these people.

It’s understandable that most people may not be affected by racism, therefore it’s not one of their priorities. However, as a Black man living in this racist country, your vote, whether you consider yourself racist or not, is interpreted as condoning racism.

If you’re not a part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Racism is the No. 1 priority to many of the less fortunate who live under its malevolent hand, not that you care.

Rod Lawrence, Los Angeles

..

To the editor: It was disconcerting to see that whole page of letters devoted to President Trump voters, who actually still support the pitiful and comical golf-playing pseudo-dictator, even at the end of his disastrous presidency.

Most L.A. Times readers I’m sure are smart enough to recognize the age-old appeals by despots from Benito Mussolini to Ruhollah Khomeini: It’s always the same nonsense appealing to people’s racism toward minorities and “foreigners,” and how great the country is thanks to them and their god, even when they ruin it.

Darius Adl, Los Angeles

..

To the editor: I was surprised and grateful to read the editor’s preface and the letters supporting Trump. I’ve read The Times for many years, and I’m a lifetime Democrat. Most of what I get from my news sources has been anti-Trump.

These were the first substantial arguments I’ve seen that seemed to come from people I could talk to and reason with. They weren’t the rude and crude attacks that Steve Lopez featured in his recent column (and that I received when I texted for Joe Biden this year).

I think we must start to see people as more complicated than we have recognized during this election. Everyone votes as they do for different reasons, and everyone has a story and experiences that have brought them to where they are now.

We must learn to find those points of contact, so we can learn not just to win, but to live and learn and talk together.

Lynn McLeod, Palos Verdes Estates

..

To the editor: What came to mind after reading the letters from Trump supporters was Emperor Nero, who was said to have fiddled when Rome burned.

While some of your writers benefited during this ill-managed pandemic, we will never read letters from the nearly 250,000 people in the U.S. who died from the virus, only their obituaries.

Tragic.

Jo’Ann De Quattro, Monrovia

..

To the editor: Were you hoping to appease Trump voters by turning over the entire letters page to them? Do you think they’ll like The Times any better?

These are people who couldn’t stand any negative reporting on their president. Not one of them mentioned the quarter of a million dead Americans under his watch. One even boasted: “I’ve almost doubled my net worth under Trump’s presidency. Shouldn’t I reward the administration that has added to my net worth?”

In other words, I’ve got mine, let the Democrats care about the rest.

Doug Schwartz, Los Angeles

..

To the editor: Thank you for doing this. I’m a left-leaning voter, but I’m also interested to read other people’s opinions and world views.

These letters reinforce the notion that people have different priorities when casting their votes, and just because those priorities are different doesn’t make them unreasonable.

Santos Mummey, Ventura

..

To the editor: There are a couple of reasons I could find some agreement with these acolytes. One is the stock market, from which I have benefited; the other is the belief that the Trump economy has been a boon to employment.

I could even understand their worries about more regulation.

But I am incredulous when anyone uses the rubric of “Christianity” to defend this most immoral, mendacious, cruel, dishonest, self-serving man as their savior on Earth.

Melissa Verdugo, Rancho Palos Verdes

..

To the editor: You featured a letter from someone in Edwardsville, Ill. I happen to have grown up around Edwardsville myself.

The writer is correct that solidly Democratic areas of southern Illinois have turned red more recently, and he offers some reasons why people have started voting Republican. However, I think he makes a crucial omission.

Anytime that I’ve asked why there were so many Democrats in that area, I’ve gotten the same response: the unions.

Unions in America are the weakest they’ve been in our lives. The Democratic Party takes them for granted, and while the unions still endorse Democrats, it gets harder every year for them to do so enthusiastically.

If you want to know why traditionally Democratic areas are turning Republican, it’s because of the erosion of the most important political relationship that existed in the region: that of the Democratic Party and labor unions.

Chris Fincher, Los Angeles

..

To the editor: These letters do not explain how years of hatred spewed at women and persons with higher amounts of melanin in their skin have not become too offensive to excuse.

Sally Cook, Camarillo