Letters to the editor: Voting, destroying trust, leadership
Voting integrity
Trump said in response to a question about a peaceful transfer of power, that we should get rid of the ballots. That the entire election is a scam. He wants to appoint another judge to the Supreme Court and let the court decide who should be president.
Where is the outrage from our senators and representatives? Every person in Idaho should be outraged. Trump wants to take your vote away from you. This is not governing by the constitution! This is a blatant intent to become our dictator! Pack the court with his lackeys. Deny the validity of all voters and let the court decide who should be president. I thought we lived in the USA – not Belarus or Russia.
Everyone needs to demand that our elected representatives express outrage, censure Trump and confirm the sanctity of our election process. Everyone needs to vote! We need to save our country from this Putin wannabe.
Marian Herz, Boise
Destroying trust
If one wanted to destroy democracy in America and shred our national culture, how might they proceed? This would be a conscious objective of global opponents like China or Russia.
A promising start would be to sow deep divisiveness and thus destroy trust between citizens and lawmakers. Eliminating compromise and respectful dialogue would be the goal in an effort to paralyze the legislative process and to catalyze anger and that desired absence of trust between American citizens.
Supporting a president who has no hesitation to say that he will not accept the results of an election would move the country down this path of self destruction. Detonating the peaceful transfer of power would serve to widen the divide in the USA and deeply damage what is unique in America in this leadership transition norm.
But the linchpin in this strategy would be to shatter the value of truth in our discourse. If we cannot agree on facts and science, then this process would be well on its way to success in getting Americans to tear the USA apart from within. Invalidating truth is accomplished with baseless conspiracy theories along with shameless and daily lies.
Does any of this sound familiar?
John Lodal, Boise
Leadership
About this time in 2016 many Americans were asking themselves, isn’t there an alternative to Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton? Some are looking at their options today and thinking the same thing. Why is it that in a country with over 300 million people, we wind up with two men at the head of the main parties, both of whom are nearing 80 years old, and have been accused of unwanted sexual touching (or more) by women they have known in the past? Where are all the people with unswerving moral character, solid leadership experience, intelligence, and a desire to truly serve the nation? I honestly don’t think that’s asking too much. The fact that people like this rarely become president tells me there is something wrong with our electoral process. Our hyper-polarized politics is filtering them out early in the process, which I believe is largely the fault of our two major parties. Great leaders are out there — I’ve met them. People who put the good of others before their own. People who have been severely tested, and proven who they are in the core of their being. Our nation needs people like this to step up.
John Crow, Boise