To the Editor:
“I Have Never Been More Afraid for My Country’s Future,” by Thomas L. Friedman (column, April 17), is an alarm all of us want to listen to. His fundamental level couldn’t be clearer: The issues which have made America robust — our rule of legislation, our international partnerships and our capability to guide in innovation — are being systematically undermined by a pacesetter extra targeted on revenge than constructing a future.
Whereas different nations, like China, are investing in clear vitality, superior know-how and long-term technique, we’re clinging to the previous and isolating ourselves within the course of. If we don’t begin paying consideration, demanding accountability and pondering past the following information cycle, we’ll get up in a rustic that’s poorer, extra divided and left behind.
We ignore Mr. Friedman’s warning at our personal peril.
Robert Stewart
Chantilly, Va.
To the Editor:
Like Thomas L. Friedman, I’ve by no means been extra afraid for my nation’s future. However not due to the mistaken financial insurance policies he focuses upon, harmful as these could also be. By far probably the most harmful and repugnant actuality of President Trump’s second time period is his ongoing violation of constitutional guardrails and democratic norms in order that he can assume a stage of energy by no means meant for any president.
This menace just isn’t merely an undesirable context for probably deadly financial actions, as Mr. Friedman signifies. Quite, these guardrails are extra elementary to a robust financial future than any specific coverage motion. Much more necessary, they’re completely important to the respectable society that financial exercise and authorities are supposed to advertise.
Robert Ward
Albany, N.Y.
To the Editor:
Thomas L. Friedman’s column captures, with attribute urgency and readability, the Trump administration’s surrealism and strategic incoherence.
His critique of President Trump’s nostalgia-driven financial nationalism — particularly the fetishization of coal on the expense of unpolluted know-how innovation — is well timed and damning. Few writers can as successfully tie within the on a regular basis absurdities of this administration to their long-term international implications.
Nonetheless, Mr. Friedman’s tendency to border China’s techno-authoritarianism as enviably competent dangers romanticizing a regime with its personal deeply flawed mannequin. And whereas his anger at Mr. Trump’s recklessness is justified, it might be strengthened by deeper consideration to the structural failures — financial, institutional and media-driven — that helped pave the way in which for such a presidency.
Nonetheless, this column deserves to be broadly learn, not as a result of it comforts, however as a result of it confronts. Mr. Friedman reminds us what’s at stake — and the way shortly it could possibly all unravel.
Jack Hill
Cambridge, Mass.
To the Editor:
Thomas L. Friedman tells us that he has by no means been extra afraid for his nation’s future. Effectively, neither have I. And I’ve been round for 88-plus years, from President Franklin D. Roosevelt to Donald Trump, by way of wars, assassinations, recessions, Watergate, 9/11 and extra.
It’s not anyone factor, and I could not see how all of this seems. However my grandchildren will. That’s what issues me.
John A. Viteritti
Laurel, N.Y.
Despair and Getting old
To the Editor:
Because the editor of The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, I write to commend “The New Science of Aging Is Getting Personal,” by Eric Topol (Opinion visitor essay, April 25).
One extra level: Despair is the only most private side of getting old, throughout the life span, from childhood to outdated age. It’s not solely the antithesis of resilient getting old and well-being, but in addition a modifiable danger issue for Alzheimer’s illness, most cancers and heart problems.
Despair impacts getting old at social, behavioral, mobile and molecular ranges. It will probably usually be prevented, and it may be handled successfully.
Charles F. Reynolds III
Scarborough, Maine
The author is a psychiatrist.
Paul Revere’s Legacy
To the Editor:
Re “After 250 Years, a Midnight Ride Inspires Still” (information article, April 21):
Thanks for recounting Paul Revere’s trip. I used to be moved by the remark made by an area resident who attended the re-enactment: “It reminds us what our forefathers fought for, and that we want to ensure it by no means will get destroyed.”
Susan Talbott
Baltimore
