Union Letters to the Editor

Denmark doing it right

September has been one of our country’s deadliest months because of COVID. Over 700,000 people have died, many of them needlessly. 2,000 have been dying every day for awhile. It is so hard to understand why some would not wear masks or get vaccinated for their own safety and to protect their family and friends.

Unbelievably, there are areas in this country where nurses, doctors and medical personnel are being harassed and accused of causing unvaccinated people with COVID to die. There are also reports of school board members, teachers and school personnel being threatened and attacked because they approve of vaccinations and wearing masks to protect our school children.

Our disgraced ex-president encouraged hatred and domestic violence, which has grown out of control over the last four years.

The country of Denmark is beating COVID and is nearly back to normal. Denmark’s death toll per million citizens over the course of the pandemic is just 22% of the U.S.’s and daily deaths there have fallen to under 10. Over 90% of Danes trusted their national health authorities, wore masks, and 86% of eligible Danes have been vaccinated.

According to the Oct. 1 issue of the Swedish newspaper Nordstjernan, Sweden closed its borders to Americans on Sept. 6 because of the huge increase in COVID in America. Vaccinations in the U.S. are below 50% in many states.

Norma Lindeen

Swedesburg

Do not forget the attempted coup

It has been nearly nine months since the attempted overthrow of our legitimately elected government of the United States. While there have been many other stories to capture our attention in the meantime, we must not forget this attack on our democracy.

We already know many details that led up to the insurrection, and more are coming out. We fear that some important details are not receiving the attention they deserve. This is especially true of the role the former President played.

First, Trump bullied a number of secretaries of state to declare that the Nov. 6 election was fraudulent and decertify the results. When even Republican secretaries of state refused and declared the election fair and free, Trump took the next step; he badgered state legislatures to overturn the results in their respective states. However, that attempt failed also.

Those failures to steal the election then led to a spate of spurious lawsuits that all lost miserably in the courts, often receiving severe rebukes from the judges (some appointed by Trump). A few of the lawyers involved are now in jeopardy of disciplinary actions for their frivolous litigation.

Trump went to Attorney General Barr, seeking intervention by the Department of Justice, but even William Barr, who previously had done Trump’s bidding, refused to get involved in interfering in the election process.

More recently, we learned of an incredible memo written by John Eastman that laid out a ridiculous argument that Vice President Pence could block the certification of the election results and, in effect, turn the presidency back to Trump. Trump harassed Pence, privately and in public, to unilaterally overthrow the will of the people. Pence even went so far as to consult with former Vice President Dan Quayle before recognizing that the Constitution did not allow him to stop the legal process.

Finally, Trump spoke to the restive crowd on Jan. 6, saying, “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” It is willful blindness to suggest this was not a call to arms, and the claims by many Republicans that this was a “peaceful rally with a few bad actors” is absurd. We’ve seen the videos.

The events of Jan. 6 constitute a genuine insurrection — an attempt to overthrow our United States government. As we weigh the evidence we already have, we also recognize that this attempted coup was perpetrated by the outgoing President.

Jeff Fager

Chair of Henry County Democrats