Letters: Too many excuses for Clinton’s loss
Hillary Clinton's campaign will participate in a recount of Wisconsin votes cast in the presidential election. Credit: Getty Images / AFP / Yuri Gripas
Columnist Anne Michaud has come up with yet another culprit allegedly responsible for Donald Trump’s victory [“Look what voter suppression brings,” Opinion, Dec. 16].
First, we were told that Trump’s rise was due to haters, bigots and under-educated voters. Then it was that darned Electoral College that stole the election from Hillary Clinton.
More recently, we were told that the Russians hacked the election and tried to hand a victory to Trump.
Finally, Michaud tells us it was voter suppression laws that helped deprive Clinton of the White House. I can’t wait to hear what the Democrats and liberals will come up with next.
It’s time to admit that the Democratic candidate and her team blew it. They lost the election that everyone assumed they would win.
Nobody buys this blame game.
Michael Cisek, East Islip
I’m scratching my head in confusion after reading Anne Michaud’s column on the election. She quotes civil rights groups trying to make the case that Donald Trump had an edge due to voter suppression.
I’m not a fan of Trump. There were other Republican candidates that I would have preferred, but I’m going to accept that Trump won through our modern representative democracy.
Michaud states that Hillary Clinton won 89 percent of the African-American vote, but she fails to mention that even though Clinton won 2.8 million more popular votes than Trump, she trailed President Barack Obama’s 2012 count among African-Americans by 2 million ballots. That’s a hefty block of voters who could have cost her the election.
Stricter voting ID laws and registration requirements are very poor examples of voter suppression. If I have to show my photo ID to get cold medication at Walgreens, I would not think that showing ID for a national election would be suspicious. Perhaps reducing the number of polling places in certain counties was a cost-saving measure.
As for Michaud’s inane assumption that Trump is somehow aligned with a white nationalist movement, this is an insult to the millions of hardworking Americans of all nationalities and backgrounds who voted for Trump.
Daniel Glicken, Wading River
