Dissatisfaction? Where do we start?
If E. J. Dionne (Times page, March 6) really thinks "[l]egitimate dissatisfaction with government has turned into contempt," he and Pam Sohn must never criticize President Trump. But Mr. Trump deserves criticism. Predecessors too: keep your plan, no nation-building, what "is" is, read my lips. "All have sinned" is an empirical fact, so repent.
The alternative to Trump was an incompetent candidate, incompetent secretary of state whose "smart power at its best" by killing disarmed Libyan thug Moammar Gadhafi keeps Iran and Korea from disarming, incompetent first lady (first GOP Congress in 40 years). A majority rightly rejected her loathsome paternalism ("irredeemable") and bloated establishment to gamble on some reforms.
And sure, Mr. Dionne, many bureaucrats (not all) mean well and try hard, but they, too, are sinners. (And we need some politics, but less.) Meanwhile, the FBI enforced NCAA rules while missing a school shooter. Unbiased efforts to guard U.S. elections from Russia might examine President Obama asking Russian help in re-election, and Clinton's campaign buying Christopher Steele's Russian gossip.
"God now commands all men everywhere to repent." Even those paid by taxpayers. And, President Trump, and those who scream at him.
Andrew Lohr
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Is space left for tweeking politics?
Those who have grown weary of the current partisan political discourse might read the piece in The New York Times by Katherine Mangu-Ward titled "When Smug Liberals Met Conservative Trolls."
Ms. Mangu-Ward notes, "When the loudest voices on the left talk about people on the right, it is with an air of barely concealed smugness" and that "Right-wingers ... then double down on whatever politically incorrect sentiment brought on the disdain in the first place."
As a result, "Many sane, self-respecting people no longer want anything to do with either side," the author observes.
Ms. Mangu-Ward then hopefully posits, "It is from the reluctant partisans and the ... stalwart independents that hope must spring," and that "... there are other longstanding principled transpartisan coalitions that might be due for reconsideration: Think cosmopolitan libertarianism or Blue Dog Democrats."
However, she warns, "These coalitions can only form ... if they can find a space outside of mainstream politics' compulsive, addictive, downward rhetorical spiral."
Let's hope that the requisite space still exists despite our fears to the contrary.
Richard Gossett
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Expect objective cartoon? Nah!
Only a Democrat, water-carrying cartoonist would show the North Koreans planting an olive branch in hopes of bringing peace to the world (Friday, page B6).
Maybe Chattanooga Times editorial page cartoonist Clay Bennett could take an objective view of the world occasionally and show a Trump-branded weed killer wilting a noxious, thorny, poison ivy plant with 30 years of growth.
But, no, even a proven maniacal, mass murderer who imprisons millions of people to a miserable standard of living will get the "Bennett-fit" of left-wing leniency.
Gary E. McDonald. Cleveland, Tenn.