Letters on Trump tweet, representative republic, surviving Trump
Trump needs to represent all of us
I take umbrage with President-elect Donald Trump’s tweet on Dec. 31: “Happy New Year to all, including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don’t know what to do. Love!”
As I see it, this is the kind of thing that keeps our country so severely divided. The candidates and those of us who campaigned and/or voted for Hillary Clinton or any of the other candidates are still Americans who care about our country. Trump clumping us in with enemies and gloating about his win in a snarky tweet does not induce us to try and work together.
Trump’s choice of words and how he uses them matter to us all, as he will soon become our president. We are all still Americans first, and his job is to represent all of us, not to insult the candidates or those who did not campaign and/or vote for him.
Floyce Wattson, Wichita
Not rulers
Headlines, across the nation and locally, are loudly trumpeting that the new Congress is ushering in a new era of “Republican rule.” The “lamestream” media still doesn’t get it.
And sadly, neither do many of those elected to represent Americans and America.
America is a representative republic. A spokeswoman of President Obama was wrong in 2008 when she said that Obama would be “ready to rule on Day One.”
Obama was not elected to “rule” the American people. He was elected to “represent” the American people as one-third of our governmental branches and to preside over that process, hence the use of the word “president.”
Another third of that process is the Congress, made up of 100 senators and 435 representatives. Note the word “representatives.”
The vice president’s role is to preside over the Senate, voting only in the event of a tie. The vice president is not the “vice ruler.”
The final third portion of the checks and balances of our representative republic is the U.S. Supreme Court.
We are not subjects to be ruled. We are citizens to be represented.
So those who are elected to represent America need to keep that in mind – or else “we the people” will continue to fire them and replace them.
Kevin Henderson, Halstead
We will survive
He didn’t know anything. He didn’t go to Princeton, Harvard or Yale. He never was a governor of a state or a mayor of any city. He has not been a senator or a representative.
They say Donald Trump is the most unqualified, the most unprepared and the least experienced of anyone who has been elected president. He was not even a community organizer.
They say that Trump’s temperament makes him too dangerous to be commander in chief. His only danger was to the Clintons and their dynasty.
This could be the greatest revolution since a few little colonies told the king that they wanted to be free and have a country of their own. This revolution will affect every major country around the world.
We must remember that this great country survived a revolution and a civil war. We overcame World War I , the stock market crash, the Great Depression and triumphed in World War II. If you think this election was wild and crazy, buckle up. With a fellow so unpredictable as Trump, we ain’t seen nothing yet. But we will survive.
Arnold Blevins, Wichita
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This story was originally published January 5, 2017 at 5:03 AM with the headline "Letters on Trump tweet, representative republic, surviving Trump."