Discontent Leads to Calls for New Third Parties

To the Editor:

Re “A Viable Third Party Is Coming,” by Representative Tom Malinowski (Opinion guest essay, July 10):

Ronald Reagan famously said that he didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left him. For moderate New Jersey Republicans, it is clear that the Republican Party has left them. Big time. Donald Trump’s MAGA radicals have taken over. And so desperate times call for desperate measures.

The newly announced Moderate Party seeks to provide a safe home for all reasonable folks in the state, not only disaffected Republicans but unaffiliated and other voters too. Let’s face it. The two-party lock on nominations and ballot access is just not working. Fusion voting — in which other political parties endorse and place on the ballot candidates who also run as Democrats or Republicans — works very well in New York, and it needs to come to New Jersey immediately.

Mr. Malinowski personifies what we all want in our congressional representatives. He works for all the people in his district. Country before party. Imagine that.

For all those disaffected Republicans and others who cringe at voting on the Democratic line, fusion voting needs to come to New Jersey.

Harlin Parker
Lebanon Township, N.J.

To the Editor:

The Moderate Party in New Jersey makes me hopeful. I’m tired of voting for the lesser of two evils. The far-right-wing extremists have even put a stain on Christianity.

The majority of Americans are honest, hardworking moderates, as am I. Living in Texas has been very difficult for moderates, yet even in Texas many of the citizens are moderates. Honestly, I never thought about moving to New Jersey, but the Moderate Party movement has caused me to consider it. Is there any hope of the Moderates organizing in all 50 states?

Nancy Evans
Little Elm, Texas

To the Editor:

Tom Malinowski’s guest essay about a new Moderate Party, composed of “Democrats of all stripes” and Republicans fed up with Donald Trump, sounds like an old-fashioned anti-Trump party. A real Moderate Party leader must declare opposition to the failed Pelosi/Schumer agenda as forcefully as it condemns the extremism of QAnon.

A true center-driven party could lead to balanced debate and legislation on the environment, energy, crime, guns, health care, homelessness and immigration, and it might even lead us out of the desert created by the Supreme Court’s attack on women’s rights.

Mark McKeefry
Seward, Alaska

To the Editor:

Since 2000, I have been a third-party voter. I have often said, “I hope I live long enough to see any third party gain power, yet I don’t think God will let me live to the age of 200.” Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, living two lifetimes might not be necessary.

Allow me to suggest a new third party called the Women’s Rights Party USA. A large percentage of women, now feeling like second-class citizens, would join it. Many conservative men might vote for Women’s Rights Party USA candidates out of empathy for the moms/wives/daughters in their lives.

If this new political party is started, maybe I would not have to live to age 200 to see real change in our society.

Tony Mathison
Wichita Falls, Texas

To the Editor:

Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, please start a third party. As a lifelong Democrat, I would vote for either of you in a heartbeat for one reason that should be the criterion for any candidate — character! They have both sacrificed everything for the Jan. 6 hearings.

I think that the Democratic and Republican Parties have been hijacked by extremists. Whom can I vote for in 2022 or 2024? Should I sit it out? It would be the first time.

Carol Shurman
New York

‘Hearts and Minds’: The Stakes in the Ukraine War

To the Editor:

Re “Putin Believes He’s Winning,” by Tatiana Stanovaya (Opinion guest essay, July 19):

To win, you must win more than square meters, you must win people — that is, hearts and minds. That war Vladimir Putin has already lost, as the world slowly comes to understand what is at stake here: the hard-fought but imperturbably found identity of a real people — the Ukrainians — and their fierce desire to defend and express that identity.

The Ukraine war embodies this struggle better than anything else I know.

Jeffrey McCabe
Ordu, Turkey

To the Editor:

With an uncertain outcome to the Ukraine war, it is shaping up as a contest between Russian energy and sanctions. Should the war continue into the winter and if the sanctions have not seriously damaged the Russian economy, Vladimir Putin will be in a position to apply his “energy weapon.”

This will be a severe test for the Europeans, who Mr. Putin is betting will seek an agreement to end the conflict on his terms.

Ed Houlihan
Ridgewood, N.J.

The Football Coach, the Prayer and the Supreme Court

To the Editor:

Re “I Don’t Want to See a Football Coach Praying on the Field,” by Anne Lamott (Opinion guest essay, July 11):

As a Christian pastor I pray and believe in the power of prayer. I also value U.S. constitutional protections for free exercise of all religions. The Supreme Court’s majority opinion on Coach Joseph Kennedy’s midfield postgame prayers distorts reality and belies power differentials in high school.

A coach’s sincere religious practice midfield immediately after a game is a leader’s public act. Mr. Kennedy’s power over lives of students, his role as teacher and his unique access to that public space reinforce that act’s power.

A coach saying “This is a free country” while much of the team joined him is a form of evangelism that many of us who teach in public classrooms and on fields have refrained from out of respect for the religious freedom of all.

Let’s not forget the freedom, agency and voice of students who are of other religious traditions or none. Do you remember high school?

(Rev.) Odette Lockwood-Stewart
Berkeley, Calif.

To the Editor:

Anne Lamott’s kinder, gentler, Sermon on the Mount type of Christianity hasn’t a prayer against white Christian nationalists, the Southern Baptist Convention, evangelicals, assorted other theocratic “sword or the cross” groups and their enablers in the Republican Party.

Theocracy is the deadly enemy of democracy, and one of the main defenses against this kind of tyranny is a very high and very thick wall between church and state, not a Southern border wall or the Second Amendment.

Bruce Lipton
New York

With Trump, Money Wins Every Time

To the Editor:

Re “9/11 Families Call on Trump to Cancel Saudi-Backed Golf Event” (nytimes.com, July 17):

The families are asking Donald Trump to choose between money and a sense of compassion and patriotism?

Silly people, it is no contest at all. Money and his personal interests win every time.

Bruce Higgins
San Diego