Opinion | Partisan Politics During the Coronavirus Crisis

To the Editor:

Re “House Passes $3 Trillion Relief Package Over Republican Opposition” (news article, May 16):

Democrats need to stop trying to add their agenda to the stimulus bill. Republicans need to stop bailing out corporate businesses that get giant tax cuts and move jobs overseas. The bill should be about helping the American workers who have been displaced because their jobs were shut down to contain the virus.

Members of Congress need to work together for the greater good of America instead of showing the American people just how petty they are. Really, is this too much to ask? We are all getting pretty sick and tired of the nonsense. Do the right thing.

Charles Michael Sitero
Ormond Beach, Fla.

To the Editor:

Re “Promising Vaccine by the End of This Year, Trump Pledges Global Teamwork” (news article, May 16):

In a phone call after his inauguration, Donald Trump told then-President Enrique Peña Nieto that Mexico didn’t have to actually pay for the wall, it just had to make it look as though it did. His emissaries to the Ukrainian president indicated that he should publicly announce an investigation into Hunter Biden, and their focus was on the announcement, not the investigation. As most people understand, appearance is everything for this man.

Now we have Operation Warp Speed to produce a Covid-19 vaccine in what is considered by most experts to be an unrealistically short time. Let’s hope past is not always prologue.

Jackie Clare Wood
Menlo Park, Calif.

To the Editor:

As a person who values life, I do not know what scares me more: catching the coronavirus, or the Republicans trying to force me out the door to confront it when they know they have not done enough to make it safe for us to do so. While the virus may or may not kill me, the more disheartening thought is that this government doesn’t seem to care one way or another whether this happens or not. I can understand why some of us believe we are headed for a dark winter.

Michael Scott
San Francisco

To the Editor:

Re “A President Riles a Nation Amid a Crisis” (Political Memo, front page, May 16):

It would be surprisingly simple for President Trump to win the election. All he has to do is bring this nation together. I do not know a family who is not hurting in some way because of the Covid-19 crisis. Mr. Trump could praise Dr. Anthony Fauci for his counsel, and he could promise to look into the whistle-blower’s complaints.

He could speak to the American people and acknowledge their pain. He could say simply, “We are in this together.” He could celebrate front-line medical workers, mail carriers, delivery people, grocery and big box store workers. And he could endorse Congress’s efforts to relieve the financial sting and support the repeal of tax cuts to the wealthy.

But instead, you reported on Saturday, “This weekend, Mr. Trump will huddle with some of his conservative allies in the House at Camp David, where they are expected to discuss the efforts — entirely fruitless up to this point — to prove Mr. Obama was involved in a conspiracy.”

This, when parents and kids want school to start, grandparents want to see their grandchildren, and folks want to know when they can go to work again. We are flailing and hurting. However, his vitriol may work. We will feel so crushed, so tired, so sick, so poor, some of us may not go out and vote in November.

Suzanne Smythe
Essex, Conn.

To the Editor:

There is an unwritten rule in business that you can blame your predecessor for all your ills for up to one year after taking over. After that you own it. As a businessman, President Trump should have a more than complete understanding of the concept.

Richard M. Frauenglass
Huntington, N.Y.