Readers Write: Trump’s cabinet picks, RFK Jr., voting, immigration

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

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Ah, the predictable hand-wringing by red team members not 100% in the cult has begun. How are Senate and other Republicans surprised by the first round of high-level appointments?

Accused of sexual misbehavior? Why not — you’ll fit right in! No experience? No problem! Conflict of interest? Yes, please! The only required qualification is unquestioning devotion to the boss, so the “shock” and “dismay” ring false.

The red team spent years sowing seeds of racism, sexism and homophobia. Then watering and fertilizing with hate, fear and lies. Money over morals. Control over kindness. Such disingenuous surprise that the carefully tended seeds of poison bloomed into fealty, greed and corruption — a veritable field of harmful invasive species choking the nation.

Accountability is dead, so my best hope for limited societal, economic and physical damage over the next four years is an administration of chaos, incompetence and infighting. So far, so good?

Melinda Erickson, Roseville

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I must admit that President-elect Donald Trump’s picks for positions in his administration are inspiring. I played football in high school and worked in retail after graduation. Now, I realize that I’m qualified to be surgeon general or the head of NASA.

Rolf Bolstad, Minneapolis

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Isn’t it astoundingly obvious that Trump, now as producer, is still hugely fixed on the model of his celebrity derived from the reality show “The Apprentice”? He wants to appoint a cabinet of dramatically unqualified, mindlessly vocal, photogenic younger people (much like the TV show) to lead the essential elements of our government. That is not a path to any hope of success for the people of this country, however they voted. It’s just a means to keep himself as the center of attention, as the appointees wrestle with one another for media exposure and he gloats over the opportunity to fire someone.

Keith Dunder, Minneapolis

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination as the Department of Health and Human Services secretary has great potential. He could prioritize the overweight/obesity epidemic in the U.S., which is projected to rise from 40% to 61.5% by 2050, according to the Lancet. He rightly blames processed food and environmental toxins and promises to take them off the shelves. Doing so would require a comprehensive change in agricultural practice, elimination of corn subsidies, more regulation and a stronger Environmental Protection Agency.

He might face some pushback from his boss and others. That should keep him busy enough to forget about tampering with some of the greatest public health achievements in history like municipal drinking water, vaccines and pasteurization. It turns out Edward Jenner, Louis Pasteur and others were on to something.

Cynthia Brady, St. Paul

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In 1954, one year before the Salk polio vaccine became available, I rode my bike to school with my friend across the street. One Friday in June, James said he had a headache. On Sunday, he died of polio.

In 1955, the kids gladly lined up in school to get our polio shots.

Richard Adair, Minneapolis

On Wednesday, our president-elect said to our elected lawmakers, “I suspect I won’t be running again, unless you say, ‘He’s so good, we’ve got to figure something else.” Reportedly, there was laughter from the lawmakers.

Did he just suggest what I think he suggested? “I won’t be able to run again. You ought to figure out a workaround [to our 22nd Amendment, which prohibits a third presidential term], and fix that for me”?

The reported laughter was that of our lawmakers. They were either laughing at his “joke” because our president-elect needs them to cover for him, so that others believe he was joking (which he likely wasn’t), or they believe he was making a joke, or they are afraid to not laugh. Whichever the case, was this really a joke? What’s funny about our president-elect saying this, behind closed doors, to our lawmakers? This seems to be a continuation of a messaging-savant, who will be our president, workin’ the audience.

Bullies use the tool of framing dangerous things they say as jokes to let themselves off the hook in the eyes of everyone except their victims.

After I read the article that included this quote from the president-elect, I thought, “Oh, that must have been a SNL skit, right? Golly, that was almost believable!” (That’s a joke ... I know better.) Truthfully, stay alert, before the joke is fully on us.

Sheila Martin, Golden Valley

In response to a letter about voting in Uruguay in the Nov. 15 Star Tribune, I wish to point out a couple of things (“Maybe the U.S. should take even more inspiration from Uruguay,” Readers Write, and “Where an election happens in an atmosphere of collective pride,” Strib Voices, Nov. 14):

Single-day voting in the U.S. would mean millions of people couldn’t vote. We would need many more volunteers and many more polling places to accommodate this. Or we would need to make voting day a holiday. As for it being “largely considered too great of a burden ... to travel a short distance to a polling station” the writer is being presumptuous here. He has no idea how many people literally cannot travel any distance to vote. Should they not be allowed to vote? Is he objecting to mail-in ballots? As for the rest of us, I’m sure the large majority of us make every effort to go any distance to cast our votes. I stood in line on a cool, windy November day for nearly two hours this year. There were more than 100 people in line at that particular time of the day and location. If voting were only allowed on one day, how long would that line have been?

It seems to me the writer would be happy to restrict voting, as his suggestions would make that the result.

There would be no joy in such a scenario.

Cynthia Mortensen, Vadnais Heights

The Star Tribune’s recent article regarding dwindling split-ticket ballots suggested a gradual disappearance of the moderate, bipartisan voter (“Trump-Klobuchar counties are vanishing, and show dwindling split-ticket voting,” StarTribune.com, Nov. 14). I suggest that these voters are still there, but it’s the loss of moderate candidates, especially on the Republican side, that limit the voter’s ability to vote in a split-vote, bipartisan manner.

Chuck Anderson, Bloomington

Many years ago, Democrats decided that they would try to win the argument over illegal immigration by refusing to distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants. They repeatedly claim that Republicans are anti-immigrant when the truth is that Republicans are against illegal immigration. Zak Yudhishthu and Bobbie Pennington say that President-elect Donald Trump’s statements regarding immigration are harmful, but they fail to distinguish between legal and illegal immigration (“Despite what Trump says, immigrants bring a lot of value to the U.S.,” Strib Voices, Nov. 15).

Of course, immigrants are valuable. We need more workers, and they often bring new ideas and create new businesses. Every year the U.S. lets about 1 million immigrants into the country legally. But during the Biden administration, the number of people attempting to enter the U.S. illegally greatly increased. Border Patrol encountered about 6.5 million people who were attempting to enter the U.S. illegally and 2.5 million of them were released into the U.S. (according to a Factcheck.org article titled “Breaking Down the Immigration Figures” posted on Feb. 27).

There are now about 11 million people living here illegally, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, as documented on the usafacts.org website. And 84% of Americans see illegal immigration as a serious issue, according to a poll done by Monmouth University in February of this year.

The United States has a right to choose whom we admit into our country. We should be able to choose people who have the work skills that are needed and make sure that they are not criminals or terrorists.

The U.S. should welcome legal immigrants, but we should also prevent people from coming here illegally.

James Brandt, New Brighton