Letters: Cynthia Allen’s offending column

Offending column

Your columnist, Cynthia Allen, writes that the grief of her fellow citizens over the election is changing her fears about the outcome of the election. (“Dear progressives: Please stop making me happy Trump was elected,” Friday)

Allen fears that the president-elect will continue to engage in dangerous and divisive rhetoric and that he may follow through on some of his outlandish campaign promises. She worries that “his cavalier and intellectually shallow approach to campaigning will carry over to the White House.”

The “progressives” she criticizes are worried about the same things. In addition, some of them rationally fear for their own safety and the safety of loved ones.

Many are young people with little experience of grief. They are grieving for their beloved country, for what they thought it was and what they want it to be.

Please don’t hold their grief against them. We know the grief will eventually ease.

I believe a better use of Allen’s column space is to start now holding this man accountable for his decisions as president-elect.

Most of us are neither crying nor whining — we are terrified! I notice that Allen did not mention Trump’s chief adviser, Steve Bannon, and all the other facets of Donald Trump that make his presidency so frightening.

My mantra has become Edmund Burke’s famous quote, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Allen’s column advances the ability of people to normalize this presidency and stand back, doing nothing.

It is unfortunate that “Democratic apoplexy” is causing columnist Allen to be happy about Donald Trump’s election, given that she didn’t support him and has “real fears about a Trump presidency.”

We have fears too. We have just witnessed the nastiest election in modern presidential history, in which the president-elect indulged in flagrant lies, innuendo and threats.

So it is not the passing of power that concerns us deeply. It is the quality of the man who has been elected and the threat he poses to the republic.

I take great offense to the disparaging comment that Cynthia Allen made in Friday’s column about how “delicious” it is to observe the “collective freak-out” of pro-Clinton voters.

She’s twisting a knife in a wounded majority of voters, who have been disenfranchised by the archaic Electoral College.

Yes, younger people, including many who didn’t vote, are acting out in the streets or need comforting. There are many more, including journalists, who are protesting via the written word.

Trump didn’t win because his voters felt they weren’t being heard; he won because he said what his voters were thinking.

This liberal has a name for Allen’s fears about Trump’s presidency potentially damaging conservatism for a generation: the Alt-Right movement.

We pro-Clinton people are not crybabies, but we are in mourning, bewildered that a grossly unqualified candidate trumped our highly intelligent, experienced and qualified candidate.

This story was originally published November 21, 2016 at 3:48 PM with the headline "Letters: Cynthia Allen’s offending column."