Letters to the Editor | Nov. 13, 2024

Elizabeth Wellington’s column, “Trump Won. It’s time we put our capes away and focus on ourselves,” expressed my same pain and anger. Like Wellington, I’d shuttered up my heart and my head and allowed myself one week of this privilege to disengage. One week to grieve, cry, and scream. One week to finger-point, catastrophize, and commiserate with the like-minded. But we can’t give up.

Giving up means hate and fear win. That misogyny and racism are OK. In my lowest moments, I’ve called on the memories of my fellow canvassers who came from all over the country, Canada, and Europe with a shared belief in a nobler United States. I remember the Philadelphians who answered my knock — some elderly, disabled, struggling to manage their own lives, but committed to voting for Kamala Harris. It’s their strength and faith I borrow. However, what we face is too complex for a cape and a last-minute superhero save. We must ignite the embers of civic engagement. So please, lace up your sneakers, find each other (and there are so many of us), and put in the hard work to save our children, our democracy, and our planet.

Frances M. Nadel, Jenkintown, fnadel@icloud.com

When I was a young clinician in training, psychoanalysis was recommended as essential. This meant consulting a professional several days each week, where you examined your life to make sure that any of your own unfinished emotional business did not get in the way of deep listening to the hopes, frustrations, and painful experiences of others. One of the most important lessons for me was gaining an understanding of sociopathy, and how it is next to impossible to outmaneuver a sociopath.

They are human chameleons who can change their tunes and contradict themselves at every turn to achieve their goals. While most people have a conscience, this is a foreign concept to a sociopath. They are wired in ways completely different than most of us, who have a desire to love and care for others, which makes it next to impossible to outsmart them. While they care only for themselves, they are extremely skilled in making others believe they care deeply about them. The charisma of a sociopath can be so intense, so blinding, that those taken in will disregard any warning — unless and until inflicted pain teaches them that for survival, change is necessary. Unless and until they learn they have been duped.

Our president-elect is a perfect example. He knows precisely how to respond to the needs, frustrations, and pain of a large part of our citizenry, promising them that he alone can make their hopes and dreams come true. For many, his rage and vile, ugly expressions offered vicarious venting of long-simmering frustrations — “At last, I am seen. At last, I am heard.” Democracy has spoken, but together we must keep calling attention to duplicity, dishonor, and the dangers that surround us. In time, change will happen. I have seen it again and again in my work. It will also be true of our country.

SaraKay Smullens, Philadelphia

Listening to the political chatter flooding the airwaves, everything is discussed about why the blue wall did not hold. No one is mentioning two important aspects of the American psyche: We are a white nation ruled by white people, and racism is still a crippling issue for us. Women will be brutally challenged if they want to sit in the driver’s seat. The fact that Kamala Harris was proud to be identified as an African American did not help her. We are still not ready for everyone to eat at the same lunch counter. Some evangelical Christians would rather see Harris make striking Jello sculptures than leadership decisions for the country. Make babies, not national policy. Racism and fear of female leadership are divisive undercurrents that must be recognized.

Michael P. Heinsdorf, Philadelphia

It’s difficult for me to understand how a twice-impeached former president who is facing multiple felony charges could return to the highest office in the land. Our laws dictate that if you are a convicted felon, you are barred from obtaining security clearance and restricted in travel to many of our allied countries. Yet somehow, these same restrictions don’t prevent someone with such a record from leading our nation and holding our national security in their hands. This contradiction raises serious concerns about the standards we set for those entrusted with the country’s well-being and global reputation. It’s time for us to consider how these legal and ethical standards align — or fail to align — with the expectations we should have for our leaders.

Sandy Berenbaum, Richboro

I’m devastated. A majority of voters elected to the highest office in the land a man found liable for sexual assault and convicted of 34 felonies. But I don’t think most people who voted for Donald Trump share his despicable views on women, immigrants, the LGBTQ community, etc. Working-class voters, however, have been trying to send a message to Democrats for years.

They don’t want to defund the police and don’t want millions of undocumented migrants overwhelming the legal immigration system. They want a decent wage and the means to buy a house. As it turns out, they also want reproductive freedom, but now they know they can get it in many states by referendum without first having to elect Democratic legislators. For a generation, Democrats have ignored what workers don’t want and failed to deliver what they do. The really sad part is that MAGA world will fail them, too. Tax cuts for the rich, tariffs across the board, and the whittling away of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will make today’s economy look like a lost golden age.

Charles Ault, Haverford, charles.ault@gmail.com

This election, I made an effort. I talked to all my friends in the Indian American community, phone banking within the constraints of my job and family. Painfully exchanged a million messages with my Muslim friends and my Hindu right-wing friends to get them to consider Kamala Harris. Ultimately to no avail. The election results are what a multiracial group of more than 70 million Americans wanted.

One reason I emigrated from India was because I hated the ethical gymnastics of trying to lead a comfortable life in a country with so much indifference in the face of disparity, and didn’t want to deal with it and have my kids face it. Now I realize that there is a similar indifference to disparities in the U.S., it’s just hidden behind a veneer of more wealth and stronger institutions.

The way forward is to have compassion for everyone, even for people with deplorable ideologies. Rightfully, there is a stigma to words like supremacist, racist, or fascist. The sooner we can remove this stigma, the sooner we can learn to work with such people while calling out their ideologies to their face and simultaneously having compassion for them, the sooner we will have a progressive majority to enact long-needed meaningful action on a lot of priorities. That also means separating Donald Trump the man with fascist ideas from Donald Trump the convicted criminal — learning to work with one while watching out for the other.

Naveen Balasundaram, Bala Cynwyd

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