Political Disagreements Should Not Result in Violence
It has been my policy not to respond to Letters to the Editor or other columnist articles, but I feel the need to respond to their criticism of one sentence in my previous column.
The comments pointed out that Trump received 49.8% of the popular vote and Harris received 48.3% of the vote. The popular vote for Trump was 77,284,118 and 74,999,166 votes for Harris (or more than 2,300,000 more votes for Trump) claiming my statement that “Trump was elected by the vast majority of the voters” was incorrect.
As most people know the President is NOT elected by the popular vote but by the electoral college. What I wrote in my previous column was regarding the electoral college vote. In that column I wrote, “Trump was elected by a vast majority of the voters and greatly increased his electoral college vote total over the last time he won the Presidency.”
The first time Trump was elected, Hillary Clinton got more popular votes than Trump but Trump won the electoral college vote.
In the last election, Trump received 312 electoral college votes and Harris getting 226 electoral college votes-- or in percentages Trump got about 58% of the electoral college vote compared to about 42% for Harris or just over a 16% difference!
Trump’s electoral college victory was greatly helped by winning the popular vote in six states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin) believed to be swing or solid Democrat states. Pundits had thought Trump might win only two or possibly three of these states.
This brings me to what I wanted to write in this column about why multiple polls show Democrats to be deeply unhappy with their party with disapproval rates ranging from 52% to nearly 70%.
The Quinnipiac Poll (July 10-14, 2025) found only 19% of voters approve of the Democrats in Congress, the lowest since the poll began asking the question in 2009.
The CNN/SSRS Poll (July 2025) reported 58% of voters say Democrats in Congress do not deserve re-election and only 28% view the Democrat Party favorably, a record low for this poll.
The AP-NORC Poll (May 2025) found only about 33% of Democrats are optimistic about their party’s future which is down from 60% back in July 2024.
Unite the Country PAC Poll found a majority viewing the Democrat Party as “Weak”, “Out of Touch” and “Woke.”
Clearly polls are only a snapshot of public views at a particular period of time and accuracy is sometime questionable but clearly there is currently much division in the Democrat Party nationally as they debate their party’s stands of transgenders in women’s sports, immigration enforcement, parent involvement in schools, economic issues, abortion, extreme left wing socialist candidates and other post-election issues.
Most Americans want the open border policy ended, and the border secured after the Biden open border policy let in over 20 million unvetted migrants. The Trump Administration has greatly stopped the illegal migrants from entering the country and has begun a program to round up illegal migrants with criminal records, ties to criminal organizations, not showing up for schedule hearing or avoiding deportation orders.
It is also offering those illegal migrants willing to accept voluntary self-deportation not only free transportation back to their native country and a $1,000 check to help them get re-established but also the right to apply to legally come to this country.
Those not taking the rather generous offer are subject to being rounded up and deported with no opportunity to ever come back into the country. Enforcing the law, that dates back to the Obama Administration, is the job of office of the Border Patrol and Immigation and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Unfortunately, some Democrat leaders have called these agents doing what the law calls for as “thug, gestapo, and even terrorists” and to even take action against ICE and others enforcing immigration laws that have put law enforcement officials in danger. So far, many ICE agents have been injured and even had their families threatened. One police officer working with ICE has been shot and killed.
Again, this is clearly not all Democrats using such terms or promoting this violence, but this followed by a spring of anti-Jewish protests on college campuses and elsewhere that have resulted injury and even deaths by deranged people acting on the inflammatory rhetoric. With some Democrat groups supporting Palestine over Israel has seemed to have caused Democrat leaders to be reluctant to condemn the violent protests and anti- Jewish violence.
Extreme comments and false statements about President Trump have created a dangerous situation especially after two assassination attempts.
One example of a dangerous false claim that has appeared in the local newspaper a few times is the claim Donald Trump suggested injecting bleach to fight Covid.
If only people, when hearing such questionable claims would do their due diligence, they would find many stories like this to be false as confirmed by fact checkers like Snopes, Newsweek, Politi-Fact, Yahoo, and others.
The story came about after an April 2020 Covid televised media briefing discussing treatments for Covid, Trump asked the medical officials to see whether disinfectants could be injected into patients to treat Covid victims.
A reporter asked if Trump was proposing injecting people with bleach or isopropyl alcohol. Trump said no and that those were things for sterilizing an area or counters. What the reporter apparently did not know is a lot of common items like lemons, vodka, or even green tea can be used as disinfectants!
Green tea, besides being helpful to a person’s immune system, is also reported to be a calming drink. Hopefully, individuals involved in the many issues that divide us will find their own calming drink or activity. Remember whether Democrat or Republican, young or old, liberal or conservative, we are all Americans and do our best when we work out our division peacefully without violence and hatred.
Just some thoughts for your consideration.
