New York Times Readers Express their Opinions on the Presidential Elections

Words fail me to express my sadness and disappointment at the results of yesterday’s presidential election, except to say that now we know the answer to the question, “Does character still matter?”

However, several writers of Letters to the Editors of the New York Times express what many of us feel, “fears for the future,” and “speculate about why he won.”

Here are a few excerpts.

Judith M. Guenther-Adams from Oakwood, Ohio, writes in part:

I woke up today in a different country. After more than eight years of watching and listening to Donald Trump’s vitriol, his lying, his relentless clawing at any and all soft underbellies, we said, “Yes, we want more.”
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Well, America, you have shown us who we are. And it’s not a pretty sight.

Cathy Bernard from New York shared how, after “one of the longest days in [her] memory,” her husband said to her, “Just imagine if we wake up tomorrow and Trump has won.”

She continues:

The unimaginable has happened, and our country is broken. There is no choice. We must pick up the pieces and continue to fight for justice — for immigrants, women, gay and transgender people — for all the citizens and institutions targeted by the Trump-Vance ticket as they plowed their path to victory to “make America great again.”

Ellen Silverman Popper from Queens says it quite succinctly:

Misogyny won Tuesday night. Kamala Harris’s greatest deficit was being born with the XX chromosomes, making her a woman. Unlike most of the rest of the world, this country is not ready for a female head of state. If you look at the male vote, it was pro-Trump.

This election tells us something about who we are. It is incumbent upon all of us who were not Donald Trump supporters to work for the success of this country and the continuation of the values and institutions we hold dear. We will survive.

After listing some of the horrors Trump has promised he will inflict when elected, Jo Trafford from Portland, Maine, writes:

And unlike his first term there will be no guardrails. With a MAGA Congress and a conservative Supreme Court his promises will become real. Arrest Americans for the sole reason that they disagree? Isn’t that what you do to “the enemy from within”?

We need to make plans for how we are going to hang on to our constitutional republic. Stop pussyfooting around pretending we are “uncertain.” Donald Trump has told us. This is our mess. Americans voted for this very dangerous man. Stop being so damn polite.

There is also some sarcasm.

Peter Alkalay from Scarsdale, N.Y. writes, “It’s a sad day. The southern border and the price of eggs beat democracy and abortion.”

He continues, “The Democrats were on the wrong side of a harsh reality: A Black and South Asian woman was not going to win over voters who don’t give a damn about democratic ideals when Frosted Flakes can cost $10.”

“We make choices, and we’ll have to live with this one for four more excruciating years,” he concludes.

A “foreign observer” from Kingston, Ontario, who “feels as though an old friend who has been ailing for several years has died,” quotes the songwriter Joni Mitchell: “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone?”

Ken Cuthbertson concludes, “May American democracy rest in peace …”

Michael Silk from Laguna Woods, Calif. Looks at the “bright” side. “Perhaps the sole consolation of Donald Trump’s victory is the likelihood that there will be no civil unrest in the wake of the election,” he writes, but immediately adds, “What a sad commentary on the state of the nation.”

Jerry Nathanson from Long Valley, N.J. asked ChatGPT to paraphrase a quote from Shakespeare’s “Now is the winter of our discontent,” after explaining to the AI algorithm the results of the election.

This is what ChatGPT came up with “in about three seconds”:

Now is the season of our fading light
Made shadowed gloom by one man’s towering might;
And all the hopes that brightened up our past
Lie in the murky shroud of darkness cast.

To be fair, there are a couple of letters expressing support and justification for the results of the election.

Stuart Gottlieb from New York believes the nation “was poised for a Republican wave” and that “[t]he only question now is whether the Democratic Party and many in the national media will learn from this election and expand their understanding of the American electorate and what drives American democracy.”

Gottlieb mentions the “analogy” of the 1980 presidential election, “when Ronald Reagan stunned political and media elites by dramatically expanding the Republican base and re-shifting the electoral map…”

Suggesting that the Democratic Party continues to move “further and further to the left” on several issues and policies, Gottlieb claims that “[t]he 2024 election put a definitive halt to the march of those policies, and to the Democrats’ fear-driven electoral strategy.”

Gottlieb warns, “Democrats and their political allies ignore this new reality at their own peril.”

Mark Godburn from Norfolk, Conn. is even more explicit.

Writing that “[a]fter nine years of the most unrelenting demonization of any presidential figure in American history, Donald Trump emerged as a heroic figure,” and emphasizing the size and breadth of Trump’s victory, Godburn doubts “if liberals even realize how much their exaggerations, lies and deceptions on everything from Russian collusion to Hunter Biden’s laptop are responsible for this.”

“Not your president? Yes he is. You created him,” he concludes.

All very interesting. But what this writer finds even more interesting –- sad — is the fact that the words “character,” “honesty,” “virtue,” “morality,” “integrity” are nowhere to be found.

But I do find some hope and consolation in Vice President Kamala Harris’ concession speech words, “While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign.”

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