The Sept. 28 editorial was way off base (“Kamala Harris should have thought more of her fellow Americans”). I totally agree with former presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ assessment that people would not vote for Pete Buttigieg as vice president because he is gay. America is so divided that it has become so ugly out there. As soon as Harris became the Democratic presidential candidate, the amount of backlash and degrading, insulting comments was astounding, most of it because she is a woman. Adding a gay man to the ticket would have just added fuel to this hateful fire.

What is “patently absurd” is to not see how racist and bigoted this country has become. Consider the fixation on transgender people, who make up less than 1% of the population, and the martyr status given to Charlie Kirk, who indicated that Black people, especially Black women, are inferior and have taken jobs from white men.

Plus, there is now talk of overturning gay marriage. Believe me. I wish the country was full of rational and thoughtful people, but it has turned into an angry and hateful place from all the rhetoric and misinformation thrown at us 24 hours a day.

Harris was absolutely right.

— Irene Kazenas, Palos Park

Editorial ignores reality

The Sept. 28 editorial about Kamala Harris demonstrated the height of naivete. The piece criticized Harris for writing in her book “107 Days” that she did not choose Pete Buttigieg as her running mate because choosing a gay man was too much of a risk.

The Tribune Editorial Board seems to forget how Donald Trump mocked Harris for being both Black and South Asian. Trump’s usual crass style of disparagement would have been an all-out assault on the former transportation secretary’s orientation.

We have witnessed Trump’s denigration of ethnicities for the past 10 years, and it all began with his ugly questioning of Barack Obama’s citizenship. And Trump tore into Harris’ gender, targeted her Jewish husband and would have relished the chance to use his vulgar language against a gay running mate.

Just look at this administration’s constant attack on transgender people. Even the so-called “unifier” Charlie Kirk once asked in 2022, “If you’re a WNBA, pot-smoking, Black lesbian, do you get treated better than a United States Marine?”

Racism, bigotry, sexism and cruelty toward people of color and people with disabilities have all found a renovated, stronger home since the rise of Trump — with a big assist from Stephen Miller.

So saying that Harris made a “bad choice” in picking Tim Walz over Buttigieg is not recognizing the current state of hatred toward our blended American citizenry. Why else would people vote for a convicted felon?

— Gary Karafiat, Lisle

Dem leaders’ betrayal

Absolutely Kamala Harris was correct in saying that choosing Pete Buttigieg as vice president would have been too much for American voters.

Tim Walz was a very good choice for VP. The problem was that the Democratic leadership, the Democratic elite and the Democratic men who were planning to run for president in 2024 all betrayed Harris.

I have a political science degree and have studied history. Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” should be required reading in every middle school, high school, community college, and four-year college and university in America. We also need K-12, age-appropriate political literacy programs in our public schools. Not tomorrow but 50 years ago.

In the 2024 presidential election, the biggest marker was money. Money was not even mentioned in the editorial about Harris. Neither were Trump’s convictions, disparaging behavior or disdain for the rule of law.

I understand why the Tribune’s owners chose Chris Jones, a noted theater critic, to be the editorial page editor. They want the politics of this country to be another form of entertainment, not the great force of constitutional democracy and uplifting force of justice that it should be.

— Donna Davis, Woodstock

Prescience about Comey

As the lone protester, in a clownfish costume, perhaps with a touch of mockery, in the 2018 coverage of James Comey’s “Higher Loyalty” book launch, may I now claim a modest vindication? The recent indictment of Comey on two charges suggests my piscine proclamation — that his conduct was, indeed, rather fishy — was prescient.

I remain grateful to the Tribune for amplifying all voices at the scene, even when my solitary “school” of thought was but a minnow amid the tide of luminaries clutching their signed copies. Their sidelong glances only fueled my resolve.

— Bartholomew Smith, Nashville, Tennessee

Peace Corps volunteers

I am among those who proudly call themselves a returned Peace Corps volunteer, having served in the Dominican Republic from 1985 to 1987. I worked as a loan officer with a goal of creating jobs through economic growth in the small business community.

The Peace Corps’ impact remains an important part of U.S. outreach to the world. During these times of serious global challenges and growing civic friction, Peace Corps volunteers remain on the job in more than 60 countries, working in collaboration with underserved communities in a spirit of goodwill and friendship.

Many returning volunteers utilize the skills they learned in service and apply them to their communities here at home. More than 3,000 Americans currently serve in the Peace Corps, less than half the number of serving volunteers before the COVID-19 pandemic.  At this time, demand for volunteers is significantly outstripping the supply of applicants.

While federal spending in the new fiscal year is filled with partisan differences, the Donald Trump administration and members in both chambers of Congress are so far demonstrating bipartisan support to keep funding Peace Corps at or near current funding levels.

For those who had thought in the past about joining the Peace Corps, this is an opportune time to serve our nation.

Visit peacecorps.gov to learn more about service with the Peace Corps.

— Tom Aichele, Arlington Heights

We are better together

I learned that the FBI is considering categorizing transgender people as a “violent extremist” threat group in the United States. Get in line, folks. You’re in good company. Seriously, though, who isn’t a violent threat, aside from cis-gendered white Donald Trump supporters?

With the anniversary of my mother’s death approaching, I find myself thinking of her more often than usual, now triggered by Shaley Howard’s articulate, humane article, in which she suggests each of us ask ourselves: “What has the trans community ever done to me?”

When I was a teenager, and the neighbors were in an uproar over a small strip of townhomes to be converted into a group home for developmentally disabled adults, my mother spoke out in favor of the plan; the group home still stands. Many years later, when I was away at college, again there was an uproar. A lesbian couple wanted to buy the house next to ours. My mother spoke out and then warmly welcomed them.

Every time I read or hear about the discrimination that results from this irrational fear of others, my mother’s mantra rings in my ears: “Live and let live.”

Today, it’s the trans question; in the 1930s, it was the Jewish question. Before that and in between, people have been turning themselves inside out trying to respond to a long list of “others” with oppression and worse.

Every day, it seems that the aspirations of our forefathers are shoved further and further away, while the prayers for our country repeated in religious and secular institutions are becoming laughable, or at the very least emptier.

It Is no longer enough to live and let live. Even if the current president has nothing better to do than think of ways to dehumanize us because of who we are, we owe it to ourselves and to each other to stand up, to act on the words and to realize the aspirations. We really are better together.

— Barbara Turner, Darien

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/06/letters-100625-kamala-harris-book/