Soapbox: We like it when you talk to us, even if you’re upset. This space is for you.

Sometimes, we talk back.

This isn’t the first time America has questioned if it’s going to survive.  The question comes up about every twenty years.  No one thought we’d survive the Civil War.  We did.  We thought the Great Depression was going to do us in.  It didn’t.  Folks around 1968 thought we were done for.  Wrong.  Granted, if Trump gets back in after the next election, we’re in serious trouble, but until then, I think we’re doing as fine as we always have.  Chill out. —David  Williams

There are many great articles about depression and disenchantment as legitimate responses to modernity. It’s natural to question and it is natural to feel disappointed. 

Thanks for your email.

Read your piece “Is America Still Worth It”. I certainly found it an interesting read. —Justin Brown

Thanks. If you have more questions, feel free to send them to us here at LEO.

I enjoy reading you every two weeks and have never felt compelled to respond to an article until now. Erica Rucker’s Editor’s Note: Is America Still Worth It? struck a chord, particularly writing about America as an entity separate from us, from Erika Rucker, from Rufus Wainwright. What if the op-ed was written more in the spirit of “We are America?” Some passages in the article are written that way, but what if Wainwright had written, “I’m so tired of us, America.” Or if Rucker has written “I’m feeling cynical about us. What are we right now?..I want us all to reflect on the ideas we claim and what we actually are…how long will we kick the can down the road before we live up to our promises?” We can’t give up, and we can’t stand back and wait for “America” to do something. We are America. 

Be the change. —Patty Kannapel

Many of us have lived, trying to be the change and we’re tired. It is not without hope that we write this but at the same time, hope doesn’t make medical bills affordable or rents lower, and it certainly hasn’t stopped violence in America, but thank you for your encouragement. Truly.   

I have to say that reading this piece is a reality for me- it expresses my thoughts and feelings of a world gone wrong, where the rich get richer and the rest aren’t doing too well.

I was driving on Grinstead Drive yesterday, and a man was shooting up on the corner of Bardstown Rd. as another man ran across the road in front of my car in order to stop him I assume.

Not many in power seem to understand (or care) that minimum wage just doesn’t pay one’s bills- most are living in poverty and can’t even afford to buy the hamburger they’re serving to the customers.

Thanks for the thoughtful piece.  Hope for a better world! That’s all we can do.­—JoAnne Taheri

You get it. Sometimes it’s just exhausting but we do hope it can be better.

Wow, your article really hit me in the gut. It was so true and so painful.

Before I moved to Europe, I was patriotic and proud to be an American. As I met people from those other countries and watched news programs and read newspapers, I realized that yes, people there did respect America’s power, but mostly they feared it. I was always struck by how much Europeans knew about our government. I remember asking one guy why he knew so much about the political workings in the U.S. He looked at me with surprise and said “Because everything your country does affects us.”

After that, I began to say that the U.S. government and the U.S. citizenry were 2 different things. It rang hollow even to me…. I mean, who was the wise man who said a nation gets the government it deserves? 

Anyway, I just wanted to compliment you on a very thought-provoking and well written article.—Maggie de la Torre

As I learn more about other nations and speak to friends around the world, what you say here is exactly it. America isn’t great because we do impressive things or treat people well. We are “great” because we are big and scary. That’s no way to be, and it certainly hasn’t served us inside America well, at all. We can’t be “Kumbaya” about everything, but we could definitely try coexisting a bit better in the world. 

Move to another country.

Your article is biased.

MAGA 4 LIFE!

Do something instead of whinning.

Trump is not the problem at all.

Many corrupt people and most of all Joe Biden had their chance to Make America Great, but have chosen immorality rather than righteousness.

Look in the dam MIRROR lady!

Decades of crime perpetuated on Black people.

The Democrats have failed Black’s, Hispanics, everyone. But u vote for them.

What is wrong with you?

Your article is biased and downright evil.

Good luck, TRUMP 2024!!!—David Negus

Yawn. What were the songs by Billy Bass, the mounted fish? 

This article appears in September 13, 2023.