Sounding off: Writers weigh in post-election

Better under Trump? Think again.

Well, the people have spoken. Apparently people think Donald Trump will lower their cost of living. But think again. Trump plans big tariffs on foreign goods; some estimates are that will cost the average family $4,000 a year. And let’s buckle up for more inflation, as Trump again lowers taxes for the rich. When the government can’t pay its bills, it prints more money, which dilutes the value of existing money.

His voters aren’t thinking about society as a whole or the planet’s health. They obviously don’t care about other people, women’s reproductive rights or the Ukrainians, who likely will soon have U.S. support cut off. Putin will have a green light to annex Ukraine. Next stop, Poland, Finland and the rest of Europe. What’s to stop him now?

They aren’t thinking about the enormous cost and suffering future severe weather will bring because we won’t be doing anything to mitigate climate change. After all, that’s just a hoax.

Think of the example Trumpism has set for young people. Disrespect for women, veterans, the disabled and scientific institutions is OK now.

Trump has talked about terminating the Constitution, and I think he’d like to end democracy. He’s already buddied up with the dictators of the world, and we probably will join the axis of Putin, Kim Jong Un, etc.

If Trump gets rid of Obamacare, we will go back to families being destroyed when one gets sick.

The American experiment has taken a very bad turn. Get ready for a bad four years. Oh wait, Trump has hinted that he’d like to stay in office indefinitely. We’ll have a century of Trumps!

Fred Durig

Delmont

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Trump and the rise of the working class

The presidential election of 2024 is history. Donald Trump and the Republican Party have had an earth-shaking victory. Yet it’s not about a man or a party; it was about the rise of the working class.

We rely on these people for just about everything. They build our houses and our cars. They repair everything from plumbing to electrical. They drive our trucks to bring food to our supermarkets and stocked the shelves during the pandemic. They had to continue to work, unlike the rest of us. They have had to work harder for less gain due to inflation.

The people saw the border, the prices at the supermarket and the crime in the streets and were smart enough to figure out we were headed in the wrong direction. They said, “We have had enough.”

Donald Trump, the billionaire, is the least likely person to connect with the working class, but that is precisely what happened. Trump reconstituted the Republican Party by listening to the discontent of the middle class. The Democrats looked to the famous and influential and became the party of the coastal elites. Trump’s success shows that people don’t care how much money you have if you don’t look down on them, like garbage or the deplorables.

The Democrats are starting to cannibalize each other. The Kamala Harris people are blaming Joe Biden and vice versa. They both ought to look in the mirror to find the culprit.

Ken Barnes

Mechanicsville

The writer is a former Brownsville resident.

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Maybe it won’t be so bad …

Maybe a second Trump administration won’t be so bad after all. We certainly need to control the southern border and rein in the radical left’s progressive social agenda, with biological males participating in girls’ sports. The federal government ought to show more fiscal responsibility.

So what if we’ve made a person I believe is a deranged egomaniac, an eighth-grade bully with a sixth-grade intellect, the most powerful person in the world — what could possibly go wrong?

The Republicans have hinted at a “secret plan” once they’re in power. Maybe the plan is to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Donald Trump from office once he goes completely haywire. One can only hope.

And maybe the American electorate will finally get what it really wants — a centrist third party led by commonsense governors and ex-governors such as Larry Hogan, Andy Beshear, Mike DeWine and Gretchen Whitmer, rather than being forced to choose between the radical agendas of the left and the right. One can only hope.

Richard Krepski

Highland Park

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Trump’s victory shows rejection of Democrats’ ways

Donald Trump’s victory is certainly a tribute to the incredible determination, stamina and hard work of Trump and many of his family members and staffers who never stopped believing and never stopped working to get a record number of Americans out to vote. Their adoption of the early voting systems and their recruitment of over 200,000 volunteers and lawyers showed their excellent organizational and operational skills, and their ad campaign proved they understood the real issue, which, in my opinion, was all about American exceptionalism vs. socialism.

The overwhelming results prove to me Americans have vehemently rejected the Democrats’ march to total government control of every aspect of their lives through the imposition of overbearing regulation, mandates and policies such as DEI, woke initiatives, ESG, pro-criminal, pro-illegal and anti- family rules that undermine traditional American ideals of merit-based success and freedom from government-controlled everything.

And this election is also a repudiation of the Democrats and their left-wing media’s anti-conservative bias and daily insults. Conservatives are not Nazis, or racists, or haters, and we are not “garbage.”

The mainstream media and the Democratic Party have become the least credible institutions in the country and neither will recover until they repudiate their pro- socialist ideology and adopt pro-American ideals. But I doubt either understands their own cancerous afflictions, and therefore will simply become insignificant irritations against making America great again.

Bob Jacobs

Unity

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Trump’s promises to workers? We’ll see.

Donald Trump claimed he will eliminate tax on overtime and some other forms of income tax if elected (“Tips, overtime, Social Security: A look at Donald Trump’s no-tax pledges and what they might cost,” Oct. 7). We should know better. He can promise, but Trump’s other promises — to gut government agencies and take away their regulatory power — say otherwise.

It is government regulations and enforcements that protect time and a half in the first place. We already have problems with worker misclassification because there is not enough oversight of employers. If we do end up seeing any of this promised form of tax relief, it will be short-lived. Trump’s is the party trying to take away the power of average families, all while making us think we are better off.

Trump’s ally Elon Musk, others in the Trump circle and Trump himself have been vocal about taking away certain worker protections and freedoms. Trump has pledged to purge thousands of civil servants from the government agencies that monitor worker safety and protect our freedoms, including the right to organize for better working conditions and wages. Trump has promised Musk, a notorious worker rights abuser, a seat in his cabinet. That says enough.

April Clisura

Greenfield

The writer is a member of Teamsters Local 249.

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Why Harris lost

Why would America vote for a convicted felon who supported a violent insurrection over Vice President Kamala Harris?

First, the economy, though we have low unemployment, a record stock market and an inflation rate of 2%. Perception is reality; things were costing more. Consumers were particularly devastated by the high cost of bacon.

Second, the perception of Democratic wokeism. How many commercials were produced by the Republicans about transgender rights? Even though one of the first bills supporting transgender rights was signed into law in 2019 when Donald Trump was president.

Harris lost because she was associated with the Biden administration, which is unpopular. Second, she had to play from behind, with her campaign starting late in July.

Americans didn’t know Harris well. They knew Trump all too well.

But I believe the main reason Harris lost is that she was not only a female but a minority female. We elected Barack Obama, but that was one step outside mainstream voters’ perception of acceptability. Harris was two steps outside of the mainstream of voters’ perception of acceptability.

Trump stated that, due to his victory, he has been given by the voters a mandate. I guess America is not yet ready for a womandate.

Dr. Daniel Bernstein

Greensburg

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Why Harris lost, part 2

Some Democratic analysts are blaming Kamala Harris’ loss on racism and sexism. They’re right. Only not in the way they think.

By almost exclusively focusing on women of color, the Harris campaign alienated white women and men of all stripes, the vast majority of whom turned out for Donald Trump.

Harris didn’t seem to make any noticeable effort to address the concerns of “non-college educated,” “working class,” “low propensity” “garbage” in “flyover country” whose males are hopelessly infected by “toxic masculinity.”

The Trump campaign met men where they are and spoke directly to their issues. Trump recognized that positive economic numbers mean little to those who are one paycheck away from the curb.

Harris ignored basic bread-and-butter issues. Instead, she dispatched Barack Obama to insist the only possible reason a man didn’t support Harris was because his Neanderthal brain was incapable of conceiving of a woman president.

The left might be surprised to learn the targets of their scorn do not suffer from Stockholm syndrome. Thus, when they sneer at religion and disdain expressions of ethnic pride as radical right-wing extremism, the gaslighted targets of such condescension are bound to take issue.

And for the record: Statistically it’s virtually impossible that there weren’t “fine people on both sides” at Charlottesville.

Peter Busowski

Jeannette