As a generation, we’re deeply involved in our careers, interacting with a mix of people daily — from high-powered executives to blue-collar workers, Mexican laborers grabbing coffee before dawn and our own kids struggling to find jobs after college. We feel the strain of a $60 grocery bill, gas prices doubling for our cars, our companies’ fleet of cars and semis and the rising cost of absolutely everything while we’re trying to save for retirement.
Do you think we’re focused on issues such as abortion or transgender rights? Or are we more concerned about electing a president who can address the basics: How will you lower gas prices, grocery costs and taxes?
Kamala Harris was a terrible candidate — end of story.
“It’s the economy, stupid!” That is, was and will always be.
— Jon Stewart, Deerfield
Americans allowed hate to win
Hate won on Tuesday. God help us and our allies throughout the world.
— Janice Laird, Crystal Lake
Where is board’s commitment?
In the editorial “It’s time to vote. All will be glad when this singularly nasty election is over,” published the day of the election, one paragraph jumped out at me from all the rest.
“Four years from now, we hope for better candidates for the highest office in the land. A better Democrat would be easily beating (Donald) Trump. A better Republican would be easily beating (Kamala) Harris.”
What a failure of the Tribune Editorial Board to do its job!
Harris has been a fine public servant for years. People may disagree with her politics, but she is an honest, committed leader.
Trump, on the other hand, is a convicted felon primarily successful at bankruptcy. He expresses his friendship with our worst enemies. His lies led to a breakdown of health care resulting in a lot of people unnecessarily dying from COVID-19. And he encouraged the Jan. 6 riot by his followers. And then there are the many, many ugly lies he continues to spread as well as his horrible behavior toward women. Need I go on?
There is no equivalency between these two candidates. At no point has Trump’s campaign been “normal,” just normalized. And yet the Tribune Editorial Board just couldn’t say the truth: “Trump is unfit. We endorse Kamala Harris.”
The board’s failure to live up to its responsibility as the provider of information that drives decisions makes me wonder about its commitment to journalism.
— Lucy DeLap, East Dundee
Failure to return to normalcy
In 2020, America elected Joe Biden out of its desperation for a return to normalcy. While President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party delivered on a number of things, they did not deliver on that. The last four years have been defined by botched foreign affairs leading to multiple entrenched conflicts; then, after years of deceiving the public about Biden’s mental health, playing a shell game with the nominee. One would have a difficult time claiming that this was the return to normalcy American voters had in mind four years ago.
I had thought that undecided voters were suffering from a delusion of a better time as they longed for a return to the Donald Trump years. In fact, they were throwing up their hands as they gave up on achieving normalcy with either party.
Hopefully, the Democratic Party can spend the next four years eschewing its own weirdness and chaos so that it can regain the trust of the American public. I have my doubts.
— Mike Belle, Cicero
Democrats’ lack of vision
First, it was the reversal of 50 years of Roe v. Wade precedent. That could expand to a federal restriction on personal freedoms we haven’t seen the likes of since before 1920 for women and 1964 for Black Americans. The president-elect threatens to invoke the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 and deploy the military domestically to round up and deport the “enemy within.” At that point, there wouldn’t be much further back in American history for the wannabe-authoritarians to take us to.
So, where do those who oppose authoritarianism go from here? Do we continue to trust the Democratic Party to put an end to it? Do we allow Democrats to continue to run on legislative compromises rather than our ideals? Will compromises ever feed our country’s decadelong hunger for change? I don’t think it will. Incrementalism as a guiding political philosophy has failed. It may be responsible for President Joe Biden’s legislative successes, but it almost certainly played a role in Kamala Harris’ defeat on Tuesday.
Assistance for first-time homeowners in the amount of $25,000 sounds nice, and so does expanding the child tax credit. However, they also sound like line-item amendments in a 200-page bill — not an exciting vision for this country that speaks to our ideals.
In 2020, the face of incrementalism, Biden, ran on creating a public health care option, canceling student debt and creating 1 million auto-industry jobs in the United States, and he barely won. Who would’ve thought that running on even less than that was a bad idea? Were we doomed when we let them convince us that populist proposals such as “Medicare for All” and the Green New Deal were electoral suicide?
While it may not feel like it at the moment, there is still a progressive future ahead of us. That’s not to say that the next four years won’t be dark, especially if Democrats can’t prevent a national abortion ban by winning the House or if the courts allow Donald Trump as president to deploy the military domestically. Best-case scenario is that we’ll be an international embarrassment.
There will, however, be more elections in two short years to strengthen those checks and balances. Two years after that, we’ll be electing a new president. Hopefully a progressive president, because if our country returns to 1798, incrementalism will never bring us back to the present, let alone the future.
— Camden G Buck, Chicago
Military, no. Presidency? Yes.
People cannot serve in the U.S. armed services if they are a convicted felon. How can the commander in chief be a convicted felon?
— Nancy Weil, Glenview
Let Lincoln be our guide
As I often do after Election Day, I paid respect to the Abraham Lincoln statue in Lincoln Park. Lincoln always looked to the best in us, to the best in this country. Which is why even in the darkest days of the Civil War, he persevered.
No matter who you voted for, we are all Americans. If your family came over on the Mayflower or went through Ellis Island, if you are the descendant of enslaved people or the Native nations, or if you just took the oath of citizenship, it does not matter. We are all Americans, and we all share the same national story.
It is an incomplete story, one still being written and one that will never truly be completed. It is why the Great Seal contains an unfinished pyramid and why the Founders said the purpose of the Constitution was to create “a more perfect union.” The great American project is never finished, never perfect.
There have been and always will be struggles. Slavery, Jim Crow and the civil rights movement all act as counterpoints to our ideals. But again, the project is never finished.
Whether you are happy or sad at Tuesday’s result, do not gloat or be angry with your fellow citizens. We are all Americans, and we all have a part to play, no matter how small, in writing the next chapters of our great national story, in making our great republic a more perfect union.
Lincoln always looked to our better natures. Let’s take some inspiration from him today.
— Anthony Calabrese, Chicago
The reason there is no furor
Where is the furor? Where is the outrage? Where is the demand for a “forensic audit,” whatever the heck that is, of the Michigan election results? Who is going to demand that Vice President Kamala Harris refuse to certify the results of the election? When are we going to descend upon Washington and storm the Capitol?
Oh, wait, the Democrats lost, not the Republicans. Never mind.
— Dan McGee, Oak Park
Evidence of secure elections
If, according to Donald Trump and the Republican Party, the Democrats stole the 2020 election, then please tell me why they didn’t do the same thing this time around? Could it be that the elections have been secure all along?
— Tom Scorby, St. Charles
Appalled by Americans’ choice
I was listening to my favorite morning radio show on Wednesday when the host of the show read this post from social media: “Stop telling your daughter that she could be president someday. She can’t.” Because 73 million of our fellow Americans would rather put a monster in the White House than a woman.
I’m heartbroken.
— Susan Lovell, DeKalb
Voting against what’s best
Millions of Americans just voted against their own self-interest.
— Margaret A. Melville, Cedarburg, Wisconsin
Why Americans should be afraid
I am deeply saddened. How could so many people elect a poor excuse for a human being, let alone for president? Were they off this planet when he led an alleged coup to overthrow this government? I don’t understand why he was not imprisoned, or how he could even be allowed to run for office again. The lies pour out of his mouth like oil from a gushing well.
Are the people this ignorant of all the crimes he has committed in his lifetime? He’s a convicted felon, a draft dodger who calls military personnel losers, a tax cheat, and a failed businessman who was bailed out by banks and his daddy many times. He’s a person who has never done an honest day’s work in his life, the key word being “honest.” He’s a person who was found liable for sexual assault. He’s someone who admires dictators. He’s a hawker of trash to enrich himself. He has no redeeming values whatsoever.
How much damage will he do to this country in the next four years? Will he tank the economy as predicted by financial analysts? He will pardon himself and most likely the traitors who are serving time for attacking the U.S. Capitol. He will do anything to stay out of jail, which is where he belongs.
My wife and I are white, financially secure people, and his reign most likely will not affect us, but every sane person should be very afraid for the next four years.
I weep for this nation. A very disheartening day for democracy.
— Ron Morgucz, Willow Springs
Young will have to push back
The country is entering an age of new darkness, to be led by a felon and followed by a compliant electorate. The fate of the free world is no longer in our hands.
The younger generations will have to become dissatisfied with it and start the march to freedom and for individual self-expression once again.
— Joe Artabasy, Glencoe
What the people have said
The people have spoken. And what they’ve said is that all Donald Trump’s lies, threats, broken promises, sexual misconduct, felonies, fraud and sheer insanity don’t matter.
God have mercy on the United States.
— Michael M. Bates, Tinley Park
It is a challenge to move on
I am trying to process the presidential election results. It is shocking to me that someone with no apparent moral compass can get elected not just once, but twice. I do not look forward to his stated plans to seek retribution.
Since we still live in a democracy, we must accept the election results and move on, but it is going to be very challenging. It feels as though the sky is falling.
— Linda Volino, Chicago
Disputing letter writer’s claims
This is in response to Henry Wilson’s letter “Why I’m voting for Trump” (Nov. 5): “The survival of the American Dream” was on the ballot, and now it will be unattainable for many. Our national security will indeed be in jeopardy when Donald Trump colludes with foreign dictators and chooses the “China-Russia-Iran-controlled order.” This also precludes “a new era of peace.”
“Limitless prosperity” is out of the question now with Trump’s economic policy plans. As for the ability “to speak freely and without fear,” Trump promises to silence and even imprison those who speak against him.
Wilson’s remark about preservation of the Constitution is a joke in light of Trump’s attempts to alter it.
— Patricia Biron, Chicago
‘Business’ choice I must make
In 2022, the board of directors that oversees the Tribune made the decision not to allow the Tribune Editorial Board to make an endorsement in the 2024 presidential race. I can only presume this was some sort of a “business” choice.
In the ensuing months, the editorial pages were consistently critical of Donald Trump and his character and policies. Time and again, the editorial board harshly chastised and condemned Trump.
As Election Day drew near, I had hoped that the editorial board would change course and make what I viewed as the only correct endorsement — that of Kamala Harris for president. Even as Trump made veiled threats to the news media, the Tribune Editorial Board remained silent.
Now that Trump has been elected, any editorials critical of him will be meaningless — nothing but puffery and bluster. The board had the chance to stand up to the hatred and vitriol that the president-elect spews, and it chose not to. Pathetic.
Thus, I have made a “business” decision and will be canceling my subscription, and I’m hoping that thousands of others will join me in protest of the Tribune Editorial Board’s disservice to the paper’s customers.
— Thomas Mulcrone, Chicago
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.
