Skip to footer

Readers write: third party candidates; Trump's free range; verbal recharge

Letters to the editor for the Sept. 7, 2015 weekly magazine.

|
Jim Mone/AP
Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont addresses the summer meeting of the Democratic National Committee in Minneapolis on Aug. 28, 2015. Sanders says international rivals would be mistaken to assume he wouldn't use military force if that's what circumstances required. He says the United States should have the strongest military in the world.

What about third-party candidates?
Regarding the Aug. 3 cover story, “How voters really choose”: I’ve been reading the Monitor for years and enjoy its insight on D.C. politics, but I believe this article missed the mark. I don’t believe we have fair, honest, or open elections in the United States. The current duopoly, made up of Republicans and Democrats, is corrupt and owned by the wealthiest 1 percent (primarily corporations). Third parties are shut out altogether. I consider the country’s best years to be when progressives like Franklin D. Roosevelt ran things. I also believe that given the chance, US citizens (99 percent of the nation) are progressives at heart and are all in complete agreement as to what the US needs to do in order to prosper.
Deanna D. Daniels
Seattle

Trump’s wealth gives him free range
Regarding the Aug. 24 online article “Has the media now accepted Donald Trump? What that could mean”: In my opinion, one reason Donald Trump is surging in the polls as the top contender in the Republican primary is because he does not wear a political mask like the other contenders. Mr. Trump can go without a mask because he is funding his own campaign. In a way this makes him dangerous; his stance on immigration and his words against the “Black Lives Matter” movement can further divide the country. It is a scary thought to imagine waking up the day after Election Day and finding that Trump has won.
Alfred Waddell
Hyannis, Mass.

Verbal recharge
I am a longtime Monitor reader and subscriber, and have for some time wanted to write and say how much I enjoy Ruth Walker’s Verbal Energy columns. It is invariably the first thing I read after I pull the Monitor from my mailbox, and I am always delighted. She has an uncanny knack for writing about things I am just then wondering about, and her good sense, humor, sanity, and masterly craft always dazzle.
Blake Ray
Durham, N.C.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Readers write: third party candidates; Trump's free range; verbal recharge
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Readers-Respond/2015/0905/Readers-write-third-party-candidates-Trump-s-free-range-verbal-recharge
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe