Feedback 11/30 

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We welcome your comments. Send them to [email protected], or post them on our website, rochestercitynewspaper.com, our Facebook page, or our Twitter feed, @roccitynews. Comments of fewer than 350 words have a greater chance of being published, and we do edit selections for publication in print. We don't publish comments sent to other media.

Shame on 'Hamilton' cast

(A cast member addressed Mike Pence, the vice president-elect, from the stage after a recent performance.)

To the cast of "Hamilton" through the voice of actor Brandon Dixon: Wrong place, wrong time, wrong everything. Present your play and do your politicking elsewhere.

HAROLD JEWELL

Thanks, Obama

In resonance with "Trump's 'triumph'" (Urban Journal, November 16): Upon seeing Donald Trump in the Oval Office sitting with Barack Obama, a noble man who always filled the office with dignity, I felt shame and tears.

What more might have been accomplished for the mutual benefit of all within a spirit of cooperation instead of mean-spirited obstruction.

Thank you, Barack. Well done.

DOUG HOENER

Trump's presidency will cause sticker-shock

When America's Electoral College decided for Donald Trump for president-elect, what it failed to see were the obvious and some not-so-obvious costs involved.

For instance, Trump's probable decision to run the country from "White House North" – Trump Tower in New York City — will become a huge tax burden. This decision will require major security measures to keep the building safe, and many inconveniences to local residents and businesses will become a regular part of life over the next four years and beyond.

The Secret Service will probably have to pay Trump to rent space in the building.

And Fifth Avenue around the building will become traffic-jammed like never before as the Secret Service and the NYPD protect the president-elect in a very high-risk, unsecured location.

Past presidents used much more secure and secluded locations for their "second" White House. This helped keep their protective services at a lower financial burden for the taxpayer.

The first lady and Trump's five children and their spouses add a heavy tax burden with their Secret Service details, too.

All of these brand-new security assignments would have been avoided if Clinton was elected. The Clintons have lifetime Secret Service, win or lose, as an ex-presidential family.

We may fail to see the cost of Trump's election now, but at the end of his term, we may be shocked to see the tax burden that his presidency caused and will continue to cause.

DOUGLAS ALLEN

What wage gap?

Our society has frequently heard that women are paid 75 cents for each $1 a man makes; this is engrained into the minds of Americans, and if you disagree with it, that just means you're sexist.

The wage-gap theory is very misleading to the point where it is simply wrong.

First, to pay women less than men for the same work is illegal, and if you suspect this is the case, you have to take legal action. Secondly, men tend to go into higher-paying fields than women, although this is now narrowing. Third, if you could pay a woman 75 cents to do the same work a man would do for $1, men would never be hired because they're too expensive, or they'd be hired at a much lower rate.

This theory is simply irrelevant.

PK WHITE

Trump's hypocrisy

Mr. Trump won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote to Secretary Clinton by nearly two million ballots. A mandate does not exist when over 50 percent of the country does not support your agenda. Those between the ages of 18-29 voted 55 percent to 37 percent in favor of Clinton. Women voted for Clinton by a margin of 12 percent. African Americans voted 88 percent to 8 percent for Clinton. Hispanics favored Clinton 65 percent to 29 percent, and Asians voted for her 65 percent to 29 percent.

Furthermore, Mr. Trump was assured victories in battleground states such as North Carolina because of efforts to disenfranchise minority communities. Long lines, confusing directions, and voter ID laws made it difficult for people on the margins to cast their ballots.

According to The Sentencing Project, more than 1.6 million Floridians — about 9 percent — could not vote because they are felons. If every American of voting age had an equal opportunity to be recognized, then Secretary Clinton would have defeated Trump soundly.

It should also be noted that the economy has now gained nearly five times more jobs under Obama than it did under Bush, and that the unemployment rate has dropped to just below the historical average.

We are not a nation under siege by foreigners. We are a nation of kindness, openness, and profound freedoms. We are not a nation going broke. We are driving the economy of the world in unprecedented ways. And we are not weak because of cultural diversity. The nation has always been devoted to diversity and pluralism as a foundation of our political system.

Mr. Trump is not aware that America is great because America allowed a man like himself to have a voice. Despite his insatiable discourtesy, strange compulsions, and fascist rhetoric, he was given a serious platform to espouse his ideas. The tolerance and goodwill extended to Mr. Trump have proven just how respectful, rewarding, resilient, robust, redemptive, and recalcitrant this thing called American democracy can be.

The very country that Trump spent an election year dismissing as garbage is the same one that made him a billionaire. The same system that he accused of being rigged is the one that propelled him to temporary victory.

GEORGE PAYNE