Your views: Readers' letters

Trump beat 'em all

Jay Kuten (November 16) makes some good points about the US election but fails to deliver an accurate assessment.

He is correct that voters supporting Trump consisted largely of people tired of being ignored by their government.

Many supported Obama in the previous elections and found he failed them, just as previous administrations had.

Jay laments that Clinton got the Democratic nomination rather than Bernie Sanders, yet it was the Democrat leadership who sabotaged Sanders.

Instead, Jay keeps slanging off at Trump.

Jay's claim Clinton descended to Trump's level for her campaign rather than taking the high ground is nonsense.

Clinton's campaign was at her level and made Trump look good to people who were paying attention to the facts and issues.

Jay also talks about "TV and print journalism" lining up to "bask" in Trump's "glow" and giving him "$2 billion of free advertising" in their coverage.

Jay seems to have missed the actual behaviour of those media.

Their "free advertising" consisted of misreporting, misrepresenting, attacking and ridicule.

While Trump discussed issues and Clinton attacked Trump, the media kept saying Trump avoided issues and had no policy while Clinton stuck to the issues.

This fiction masquerading as journalism should be shocking, but it was eclipsed by the inside information WikiLeaks delivered.

It is hard to take the media seriously when it is revealed that some journalists were submitting their articles to the Clinton campaign or the Democrat Party for editing and approval before publication. Some asked the Clinton Campaign for tough questions to ask Trump.

And, of course, there were leaks to Clinton of questions she would be asked in two different debates.

Jay should recognise that Trump beat one of the worst-ever candidates for the presidency and also beat the Democrat Party, part of the Republican Party, most of the mainstream media, much of the celebrity elite of Hollywood and the music industry, and US academia -- all the normally influential elements of US society.

He won, now let's give him a fair chance and see if he can follow through on the many promises he made. (Abridged)

K A BENFELL
Gonville

Quakes and sin

Brian Tamaki is taking a fair bit of stick for supposedly misquoting the Bible, a book I have not read.

According to Brian, God unleashes hell on those the Bible earmarks as sinners.

He is only maintaining a religious practice of giving their disciples a tongue-lashing to keep them away from God's wrath.

The problem with God's wrath is that he takes a broad sword and cuts down the innocent bystanders; he closes his eyes and whacks.

Church hierarchy attacks some of God's creations because they are different from them. God did not get his creation quite right -- God's mistake, but the poor individual has to accept the wrath of the church's hierarchy.

They refuse to acknowledge that God is not infallible.

Everyone is aghast at Brian's stance, but it does not seem long ago that the mainstream church hierarchy were saying Aids was God's punishment for being homosexual.

Brian is just keeping up the tradition.

G R SCOWN
Whanganui