Letters to the Editor

Letter: No leadership

While 55 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic, food banks are overwhelmed by impossibly long lines of people struggling to feed their families and health care workers are exhausted as hospitals are swamped, we have virtually no national leadership.

More than 40 members of the U.S. Senate are millionaires, some many times over. The U.S. President and his chief relief negotiator, Steven Mnuchin, are billionaires, and all seem more concerned about their month-long vacation than providing the next round of relief for hurting American families. Such lack of empathy and caring! Such shame!

The President golfs frequently with no regard for the 160,000 dead, their families, the unemployed and those in desperate need. He has his head buried deep in the sand, hoping that the virus raging in the U.S. will “just disappear.” That is not leadership. It is abandonment.

When our President does show his face, he tells lie upon lie about how well our country is doing facing the pandemic, and blatantly disagrees with and often disparages his own medical experts. He encourages and promotes risky health behavior and solicits medical advice from quacks and news personalities with no medical expertise. Long ago, our ‘wartime President’ abandoned his post and retreated, waving a white flag, to leave the states to figure out a battle plan for themselves.

GOP leaders do not push back on this lunacy and often support it. Our own congressional delegation remains complicit.

We often hear claims that we have the best medical system in the world, as the rest of the world cries for us and puzzles how this national tragedy could happen here. With the ‘leadership’ that we have, it’s easy to see why.

Steve Aberle

ADVERTISEMENT

Anchorage

Have something on your mind? Send to letters@adn.com or click here to submit via any web browser. Letters under 200 words have the best chance of being published. Writers should disclose any personal or professional connections with the subjects of their letters. Letters are edited for accuracy, clarity and length.

ADVERTISEMENT