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Readers write: The 'Trump' effect on readers

Letters to the editor for the Feb. 8, 2016, weekly magazine.

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Ann Hermes/The Christian Science Monitor
Donald Trump speaks to a crowd of several thousand at a campaign rally Jan. 4, 2016, in Lowell, Mass.

Regarding the Jan. 25 cover story, “The Trump effect”: I am insulted to think that the Monitor is giving Donald Trump so much publicity. He comes across as anything but the kind of person who should be supported for the presidency. Mr. Trump has insulted religious groups, threatened to kill other groups or said he wished to eliminate others, called people names, and put down many others. He has made a negative name for himself internationally as well. Is this the kind of person the Monitor should give center stage to regardless of his notoriety?
Linda Snorek
Spofford, N.H.

The cover story on “The Trump effect” may be, in fact, the best article I have ever read on the presidential candidate! Donald Trump has been more than baffling, frustrating, and at times downright terrifying to us liberals and intellectuals. The cover story brings everything into focus in a way that makes disturbing but undeniable sense. I certainly cannot say I feel any better about a possible Trump presidency, but the article has presented the clearest possible picture of why it could happen; understanding that scenario, rather than being completely flummoxed by the phenomenon, is worth its weight in gold.
Charlotte Wallace
Via e-mail

Donald Trump’s success should surprise no one. Ever since US society traded thoughtful, literate communication for the visual amusement of television, we have given up serious discourse. We’ve become a culture focused on entertainment not dialogue. Serious issues may be discussed in State Department meetings, but they only make the 6 o’clock news as brief visual sound bites. When presidential candidates appear on “Saturday Night Live” or alongside famous comedians, how are we to view them as anything but entertainers? Mr. Trump is a smart, successful businessman. But he understands the “bread and circuses” of TV and news environments and plays it like a master.
Paul Sedan
San Francisco

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

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