To the Editor:
Re “Biden Vows to Guide U.S. Out of ‘Darkness’” (front page, Aug. 21):
Joe Biden gave one of the most powerfully delivered speeches I have witnessed in my lifetime. I could feel my blood pressure lower and my anxiety level begin to dissipate as he spoke. All I kept saying to myself was “Yes!” at each of his strong points. I experience the exact opposite feeling when I watch the current president speak.
Truth over lies; science over wishful thinking; love over hate. That’s the America I want to live in. I wish Election Day were tomorrow.
Len DiSesa
Doylestown, Pa.
To the Editor:
For the first time in almost four years, I have a genuine sense of hope in the United States after watching the Democratic convention. I have watched the way the United States has been diminished in international and domestic affairs. Finally there is a prospective leader offering himself for election who speaks from the heart and acts from experience.
The world is waiting for American moral and economic leadership — to become a beacon for those around the globe who long for a better world.
Stephen Plunkett
Littlebourne, England
To the Editor:
An open letter to everyone who had a part in making the Democratic convention such a success:
Thank you for your stupendous work! You presented a creative, informative, thought-provoking and inspiring production. Especially touching were the children singing our national anthem, the roll-call vote and young Brayden Harrington, who had the courage to go on national TV despite his stutter.
Susanna Ehrmann
Northbrook, Ill.
To the Editor:
Having just watched Joe Biden speak, wrapping up the Democratic convention, and putting aside all the obvious reasons he deserves to be president, I was struck by this: the crowd gathered in the parking lot of a shopping center, the modest fireworks display, the people honking the horns of their cars, creating an atmosphere of a “real” America — an America many of us grew up with and remember with nostalgia and warmth.
To me it was infinitely more effective and affecting than an arena filled with tens of thousands of people and balloons dropping.
Might this be the future of political conventions?
MacKenzie Allen
Santa Fe, N.M.
To the Editor:
As an unrepentant child of the Sixties, I am a social progressive who welcomes all the signs of inclusion the Democrats have shown us thus far in the diversity of its spokespeople, from celebrities to “ordinary people,” from rising political stars of every color and ethnicity to the Old Guard urging us on, and from Democratic activists to courageous Republicans.
However, there is one group that has not been equally represented, and I fear that we Democrats are about to repeat the mistakes of 2016 by slighting that group: working-class and middle-class white men. They were once dependable Democrats but more recently might feel overlooked and underappreciated, rendering them vulnerable to wooing by our current president, or susceptible to not voting at all.
If we are to have any hope of defeating Donald Trump, we need their votes and we need their inclusion in our vision of a united America. We should include them, their faces and their voices, in our messaging. They are, by and large, the same good and decent people, with the same fears and frustrations, as the rest of those we are currently showcasing.
Laurie J. Macdonald
York, Maine
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
