Letters: Controversy’s effect | Swing to right | Centrist Democrats | Oppose Trump

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Volleyball captain feels
effect of controversy

Re: “Judge: Transgender player can play in tourney” (Page C1, Nov. 26).

Brooke Slusser, the athletically talented San Jose State women’s volleyball captain, has fomented a disingenuous “emergency” in women’s sports and has become the darling of MAGA nation and their enablers Fox News.

After claiming, with shamefully no evidence, that transgendered women athletes are taking over women’s sports and endangering cisgender female athletes, Ms. Slusser was quoted as saying that she was surprised “how much hate people might have for me.”

If she needs a shoulder to cry on from someone who truly knows hate, might I suggest she talk to, and commiserate with, her transgender teammate.

Barry Goldman-Hall

San Jose

State follows nation
in swing to the right

California voters displayed extreme right-wing values on the propositions in this past election.

They voted to keep slavery in Californian prisons. They voted to fill our prisons with people convicted of minor crimes. They voted against increasing the minimum wage for the poorest Californians. They voted against affordable housing for the poorest among us.

Clearly, we have become infected with the same love of authoritarianism that has infected our nation and so many other countries around the world. We have chosen fear and cruelty instead of love and compassion.

John Pritchard
Watsonville

Democrats should trend
toward center to win

Clearly, the Democratic leadership has grossly misread the electorate’s mood in a titanic manner. While the GOP boldly defined a concrete set of conservative issues, whether real or imagined, the blue party failed miserably to address them effectively or even at all.

Outreach to minorities by the Republicans further reinforced a united march toward victory, rejecting a female presidential candidate for the second time in our recent history. This election highlights the point that charisma, no matter how corrupt, warped and dangerous, trumps competence and experience every time.

The final message to Democrats should be that a decidedly aggressive move toward the center in order to capture the hearts and minds of the great silent majority living between both coasts is needed most of all. New populist leaders who can move America’s heartland are needed in order to have at least a fighting chance to win.

Michael Alvarado
San Jose

Citizens must dare
to oppose Trump

We now have a president who lies, cheats and degrades those who dare to oppose him.

I hope those who are ashamed to have him represent our country will do all they can to overshadow his negative influence by building a movement that is based on honesty, justice and compassion.

We cannot afford to be silent when our future and the future of our next generation are at stake.

Genie Bernardini
San Jose