LETTERS

Thoroughly Disgusted, and Still Supportive On receiving your October/November 2020 issue, I felt thoroughly disgusted by your focus on Trump’s sociopathic actions over the past four years. I, for one, don’t need a literature review of what he’s done to destroy our democracy. Like other journalists, you’ve been sucked into promoting and advertising his brand. I can’t even stand to look at his face that you plastered all over your front cover!

So I refuse to read this issue’s main articles. I’m already angry and depressed enough. Nevertheless, I am donating to The Progressive to help keep you alive. —Jeanne Klein Lawrence, Kansas

The ugliest, most disheartening cover in my fifty-seven-year history of reading The Progressive. When my print copy arrived, I frantically folded the cover back so no one else would have to see it. Was that a trick to make us open the issue without delay?

Surely you could have found more enabling images to bolster our electioneering efforts? —Chip Sharpe Bayside, California

The October/November issue of The Progressive was the most difficult and saddest read I have experienced in the many years I have subscribed to your wonderful magazine. Not because of the content and analysis—which was, as usual, spot on, informative, and helpful—but rather because so little of what you published is also being said by the Democrtatic Party.

Bravo to Jim Hightower (“The Better Part of Patriotism”), who offers a wonderful way to reclaim my ideals for this country. We live in a time that is difficult for one’s spirit. Whatever the outcome of this election, the times will remain hard for those of us with a passion for progressive ideals. I hope your magazine will work to serve ways of helping to heal our spirits. —Michael S. Glaser St. Mary’s City, Maryland Cut the nonsense Nancy Churchill’s letter in the October/ November issue plays right into Trump’s narrative of the “looney left.” She says white supremacists may have infiltrated demonstrations to “inflict widespread damage . . . in order to give the protests a bad name.” The Black looters in downtown Chicago and New York were white supremacists?

You aren’t helpful to our credibility when you print nonsense like that. Reflect back, if Trump wins again. —John Wiegardt Warner Creek Correctional Facility Lakeview, Oregon

Oceans Away

Carbonic acid from runaway CO2 in the atmosphere is driving down ocean pH. Ocean acidity is up around 30 percent since 1751. This will not end well. It will end with an ocean hypoxic event or even a repeat of the end-Permian Mass Extinction. Ocean dead zones, which are increasing in size, already emit poisonous hydrogen sulfide gas. This is an add-on to rising sea levels. —Erik Westgard St. Paul, Minnesota Thanks, John Cusack I followed John Cusack on Twitter, until they suspended me for my outspoken disdain for Trump. I admired his fearless conviction against Trump, calling him out for what he is—a con, a thug, a liar, a sociopath, and yes, a gangster. He has echoed my very words at times. I am not a celebrity, so my voice doesn’t carry weight, but that doesn’t mean that I will not shout my disdain for this travesty of a President from the rooftops at every opportunity. —Kathleen Andrade Santa Barbara, California

Correction:

In the Editor’s Note in our last issue, the staff photo did not exactly match the provided caption; the correct masked-photo arrangement for the last issue’s caption appears in this issue.

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