Readers Write: A justified (or not) vote for Trump, juvenile justice reform

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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“The case for choosing a Trump-Vance administration” (Strib Voices, Oct. 9) should not have been labeled “counterpoint.” It should have been labeled “bizarre alternate reality.”

I almost gagged when the writer put forth points like how the first Trump administration brought prosperity, security and constitutional respect. Trying to overturn an election by having a state “find” 11,000 votes and encouraging a mob to take over Congress and hang his own vice president really shows me how little constitutional respect there is in this ex-president.

Humane immigration policies? Another laugher. Splitting up families at the border and putting children in cages is humane? His nuking of a broad bipartisan bill for immigration reform shows how insincere this point is.

Combating the fentanyl crisis? He had so much success there. Any readers remember the fact that Donald Trump was going to build a wall on the southern border and have Mexico pay for it? Another resounding success by the ex-president’s administration.

An economic plan with the middle class and job creation at its core? Sorry, again his tax policies overwhelmingly favor his ultrarich cronies. Pro-family economy? “Tax cuts for middle-income earners made a real difference.” Bwahahaha!

National policies to reduce crime and tackling crime head-on? The only way that would be remotely true is in Trump using the wrongheaded Supreme Court decision to declare that none of his felonious acts were actually prosecutable because the president can do whatever he wants.

The author of this article may be a lawyer and former candidate for state auditor, but I would seriously like to know what he was smoking when he penned this batch of baloney.

Paul Schultz, Ham Lake

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Kudos to Ryan Wilson for so eloquently stating the stark contrast in our choices this election in “The case for choosing a Trump-Vance administration.” Any person who loves freedom, democracy, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness agrees wholeheartedly with Wilson.

Our choice is either the pursuit of the American dream or becoming a Democratic Party apparatchik. We have suffered the last four years with no leadership in the White House. I doubt we will ever know who was actually making executive decisions. (It was not President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris.)

The power brokers in the Democratic Party are the “candidate” this year. Harris is the figurehead. They are so ensconced and unchallenged that they are willing to have a figurehead who cannot cognitively put together sentences without a teleprompter. I have watched the few “interviews” Harris has had with partisan interviewers. She answers softball questions with word salads that make no sense. CBS had to edit her answers on “60 Minutes” so it appeared she was just dodging the question and not making incoherent statements.

This election, people who love freedom, democracy and the Constitution of our founding fathers will vote for Trump and Vance. People who prefer government control and socialist norms will vote for Harris and Tim Walz.

Bob Tumilson, Apple Valley

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Wilson’s commentary on choosing the Trump-Vance administration fails in multiple ways. He says he wants “things to be ... normal.” However, it’s not normal to allow a man convicted of 34 felonies and found liable for sexual abuse to even be on the ticket! But let’s go farther.

On Wilson’s first point, about an economic plan for job creation, he feels Trump would excel at this. Unfortunately, over his four years in office, Trump lost jobs in the U.S., unlike nearly every other modern president.

Wilson’s second and third points are about respect for the law, lowering crime and support for law and liberty. First, how does a man with multiple felony convictions show us he cares about the law? Most egregiously, how dare Wilson tell us Trump has respect for the law when Trump incited, encouraged and then enabled a massive insurrection and riot against our own government on Jan. 6, 2021, causing untold millions in damages, and worse, causing attacks on our nation’s Capitol Police and danger toward our members of Congress and their staff? Trump encouraged his supporters to come, told them, “It will be wild!” and eagerly watched the rampage and destruction on TV while laughing and smiling. Multiple witnesses have testified to this. Furthermore, when told rioters were chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” his own vice president, his response was, according to court documents, “So what?” This cold, cavalier response coupled with that behavior is completely unacceptable and outrageous coming from any elected official, let alone the president.

It boggles the mind that Wilson thinks this unscrupulous, volatile man and his equally unprepared, inexperienced VP pick are a better choice than our current vice president, who is not merely calm, dignified, poised and appropriate, unlike Trump, but who has also been a successful prosecutor, a district attorney, the attorney general for the state of California, a U.S. senator and vice president, presiding with Biden over a growing, stable economy with among the lowest unemployment and lowest inflation rates in the developed world.

I urge Wilson and other Republicans to rethink their choice on Election Day. Harris and Walz will deliver on all the points Wilson brings up. Trump will not.

Eva Lockhart, Edina

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Wilson missed some things in making his case for a Trump-Vance administration. Trump has an economic plan for the middle class: raising the cost of almost everything through tariffs. He has a pro-family stance, unless you have a trans kid. He supports law enforcement, except the U.S. Capitol Police. He is good at tackling crime head-on, as only a convicted felon could. He will defend free speech, until you criticize him. And he will protect religious liberty as long as you are an evangelical Christian. A second Trump administration is a rendezvous not with destiny, but insanity.

Tom Fisher, St. Paul

In the early days of the COVID pandemic, you had to go to a drive-thru test site because rapid tests were not yet available. Laboratory-grade testing machines were the only way to obtain a reliable diagnosis, and those machines were in short supply. They were available in limited laboratories, along with point-of-care locations such as hospitals and emergency rooms. This made getting tested an ordeal and delayed reporting. If journalist Bob Woodward’s account is correct, Russian President Vladimir Putin, through Donald Trump, was provided with multiple COVID testing machines for his own personal use. Based on previous reporting, he was also provided with ventilators. These are machines that may well have been used to obtain prompt diagnosis and treatment right here at home. Yet, somehow, assuaging the needs of a foreign dictator in order to curry favor and win flattery was more important. How is this even remotely OK?

Patricia Arneson, Wayzata

As a former clinical and executive director of residential treatment programs for three Minnesota agencies from 1975 to 2005, and a former member of a governor’s task force on residential treatment program licensing standards, I am strongly in agreement with Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty and Minneapolis City Council Member Elliott Payne about the need for out-of-home treatment options for high-risk children (“There’s a system failure in a key area of juvenile justice,” Strib Voices, Oct. 9).

Competent program design and supervision is critical in this domain. Most residential programs in the past were staffed by young, inexperienced, low-paid counselors, and psychological services were a sham.

As recently as 2021, Cambia Hills, a highly touted treatment program, was shuttered after receiving 33 state citations in less than two years. The program director had been quoted in the Star Tribune, saying, “We don’t have any model that we can look to that is trying to provide the level of care for the kids we are trying to serve.”

It is pathetic that this person was unaware of successful programs but not surprising given the evidence of bargain-basement design.

My father’s animal feed store in western Minnesota had a poster that said, “Obtaining quality is like buying oats. The good stuff costs but that which has been through the horse is cheaper.”

Richard DeBeau, Northfield