More from our inbox:
- Biden vs. Trump Over Jan. 6
- Don’t Ignore Long Covid
- Prayer in Schools
Credit…Aaron Hardin
To the Editor:
To Margaret Renkl’s challenge — “Don’t Like the South’s Politics? Move Here and Vote” (Opinion, July 20) — my response is that I don’t have to and don’t know why I would. I may not be able to vote in the South, but my money can.
One thing we have learned from Donald Trump is that every elected office is a national office. I am happy to contribute to good candidates even in states other than my own.
It is my way of nationalizing every election in the South and fighting back against the entrenched regional interests and narrow political perspectives that are at large there. If more voters nationwide made every contest their own, the entrenched local politicians could not compete.
Richard W. Poeton
Lenox, Mass.
To the Editor:
I am so grateful to Margaret Renkl for her essay encouraging liberals to move to the South and vote. I hope some will.
As a lifelong and fairly liberal Southerner, I have been battling despair and hopelessness as I have watched so many of my neighbors fall for the lies spouted by a sore loser ex-president. The divisiveness he has promoted is just making America mean — not great.
I have been saying I need to move to a more liberal area, and if it weren’t for my children and grandchildren all living nearby, I would have.
Thank you, Ms. Renkl, for helping me remember other good reasons to stay home and work for change.
Chandler Rosenberger
Suwanee, Ga.
To the Editor:
Margaret Renkl urges more liberal voters to move to the South. She must know that in choosing a home people decide based on what is best for them. Any family that could someday have members of childbearing age now has to consider where they will all be safe.
If people already living in the South vote against the health and safety of their citizens, they cannot expect others to move in to save them.
Carlene Boisaubin
Eggertsville, N.Y.
To the Editor:
I love Margaret Renkl’s essay. It is all so true about what we found in the South when we moved there five years ago because of a granddaughter. Southern hospitality is a real thing. Neighbors will help with a lost pet or a flat tire any time of the day or night.
We are balanced liberal voters who want to respect each person regardless of their politics. I sometimes wish that the Trump signs weren’t so large or that the pickups would remove their large Confederate flags, but I have never met a mean person in five years.
We plan to become snowbirds soon, with Colorado in the summer and the Florida Panhandle in the winter. I’ll be looking for more of you who think like Margaret Renkl.
Marcella Rejoice Ruch
Colorado Springs
To the Editor:
Margaret Renkl accurately points out many virtues of the South. Beauty, hospitality and kindness do abide there.
However, as a mother of two daughters who reside in Nashville, I now live in fear of what might happen if one of them suffered a pregnancy complication and was denied lifesaving care because of the recent Dobbs decision.
I must respectfully disagree with Ms. Renkl and caution, “Liberals, run for your lives.”
Carrie Montague
Sparks, Md.
To the Editor:
My parents both came from Kentucky, so I spent a lot of time in the South when I was young. I laughed when I read the author’s description of Southerners as being generous and always willing to help if your car breaks down or whatever. My observation was that might be the case if you’re white and if they perceive you to be Christian and heterosexual.
I wouldn’t live in the American South for any amount of money.
Glynn Chesnut
Glendale, Calif.
To the Editor:
Like Margaret Renkl, I am a Tennessean. I am a Southern Democrat who is continually flummoxed by the sheer lunacy of many of our neighbors and fellow citizens here in the Volunteer State and beyond.
I find her take on today’s America to be spot on, but not mean or spiteful. In today’s desert of introspective thought and concern for the commonweal, she offers us an oasis of cogent perspectives.
Kudos to her for her willingness to succinctly address these thorny issues from here in the belly of the red South. And kudos to The New York Times for hosting her essays and all the other works from your blue-ribbon writers.
Matt Thomson Sr.
Jackson, Tenn.
Biden vs. Trump Over Jan. 6
To the Editor:
Re “Biden Lashes Trump Over Capitol Riot, Saying He ‘Lacked the Courage to Act’” (news article, July 26):
President Biden lets Donald Trump off too easily. Perhaps his actions were far darker; perhaps he had planned the insurrection and was waiting to take control. We need to stop being naïve and consider that his plans might be far more dangerous to our democracy.
Pat Alexander
Cortlandt Manor, N.Y.
To the Editor:
I think President Biden has it wrong. Trump had “the courage to act” … in his own self-interest!
Brant Thomas
Cold Spring, N.Y.
To the Editor:
We far too easily misrepresent the former president. He did not lack the courage to act against the mob attack on the Capitol; he lacked presidential stature. In choosing not to act, he failed the office of president.
Harold A. Maio
Fort Myers, Fla.
Don’t Ignore Long Covid
To the Editor:
“Endemic Covid-19 Is Looking Brutal,” by David Wallace-Wells(Sunday Opinion, July 24), overlooks one of the most perilous aspects of endemic Covid-19: increased cases of long Covid.
Too often, long Covid is buried under media coverage that counts infection rates, deaths and hospitalizations as the markers of the pandemic. We can’t predict the full impact of long Covid in coming decades, especially as the number of affected individuals continues to rise.
Long Covid sufferers are adults of all ages, and even children. They are parents, scholars, athletes and valued community members. Most of them once led full and active lives but now spend days housebound. Many can no longer work but have been denied disability benefits.
Comprehensive Covid journalism begets comprehensive Covid policy. We simply cannot discuss endemic Covid without including long Covid. Otherwise, we discourage action against a mass disabling event with impacts that we have only just begun to measure.
Emma Zimmerman
Brooklyn
Prayer in Schools
To the Editor:
I am old enough to remember when there was prayer in schools. While my elementary school class recited the Lord’s Prayer, I mumbled or stayed silent, knowing that it wasn’t my prayer.
Justices, please don’t make my grandchildren feel the same discomfort. These are public schools. They belong to everyone.
Burt Solomon
Arlington, Va.
