To the editor:
Most American voters want to see a new occupant of the White House. They are tired and also disgusted with the rude and disrespectful style of the current occupant and repelled by his volatile governing from his own gut to deliver the country over and over into new conflicts and crises. Most American voters seek moderation, civility, and sound judgment in a president.
It makes a great deal of sense that many of New Hampshire’s voters in 2016 were choosing between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, for they are personally and politically similar in ways that prove injurious to our country. Both are isolationist America firsters. Both are very friendly to Russia (now sliding back into the Soviet Union, where the Sanderses honeymooned). Both have neither interest in nor talent for conducting foreign policy and achieving appropriate foreign relations. We need a strong NATO. We need to be fully engaged in the Paris Accords on climate change. We need to be heading up policies of the T.P.P. (do we really want to standby and leave China in charge of international trade?). Both are incapable of working with other people, considering themselves and their ideas superior to other people’s, unwilling to listen or bend to get things done. Both need the adulation of the adoring crowds at their rallies where they shamelessly excite their gathered throngs with “tremendous” unrealistic plans. Both sow dissension by loudly making enemies of certain groups, claiming, respectively, that nasty rich people and nasty immigrants threaten our country.
Therefore if Democrats hope to win the White House next November, they had better heed the wishes of the electorate. The voters that matter particularly – the unions, farmers, independents, and suburban women, particularly those in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania – don’t want Bernie Sanders-style “revolution” or anybody else’s health care upheavals as in “Medicare for All”. Union members, it is well to keep in mind, willingly gave up raises in favor of the outstanding health care they now enjoy. Farmers don’t appreciate trade wars that rob them of their markets. Independents and suburban women want good public education for their children, safe schools and streets, sensible gun regulation, political leaders who respect the law and behave decently, and a president they can point out to their children as an example of admirable leadership.
Heidi Dawidoff
Francestown