Submit your letter to the editor via this form. Read more Letters to the Editor.

GOP duplicity inspires
Newsom mapping ploy

California’s redistricting plan (“Newsom reveals mapping gambit,” Page A1, Aug. 15) is debatable. However, with the Trump administration’s rapid movement toward authoritarianism, it’s an easier call.

Related Articles

Letters: Bill for housing near transit further threatens neighborhoods

Letters: No more empty promises on drug, mental health treatment

Letters: Only advocates of spending would bury bills’ costs

Letters: Front-page story is a celebration of economic disparity

Letters: Supplemental education pays dividends in the long run

Masked ICE agents without IDs grab productive immigrants with no due process. More than 70% of those taken have no criminal convictions.

Trump manufactured crises in L.A. and Washington, D.C., to bring in the National Guard. This will continue with blue Oakland a possible next target.

Earlier, he released billions of gallons of water from a California reservoir ostensibly as a threat to the state.

Authoritarian intimidation will continue for the next 16 months until midterm House Representatives are seated. We must make certain the next House is a Democratic majority or else unchecked authoritarianism will continue through ‘28.

We’ve asked our Democratic leaders to fight harder. They have with a redistricting plan as a response to Trump’s and Texas’s effort to tilt the midterms.

I support redistricting if Texas proceeds with its similar effort.

Barry Brynjulson
Pleasanton

Two ways to fight
back against GOP

Re: “Bay Area needs unity to solve its problems” (Page A7, Aug. 17) and “California can’t afford to allow Texas to rig ’26” (Page A6, Aug. 17).

Thank you to the East Bay Times for two pieces in the opinion section of Sunday’s paper.

One was Russell Hancock’s essay about the potential of the Bay Area to do great things to enrich the lives of citizens if we just work together. Rather than continuing to be reactive to all the chaos and criminality coming out of the federal government, let’s channel our outrage over Donald Trump’s transgressions and be proactive in what we can do to improve the lives of people we can reach.

The other piece was the editorial supporting Gov. Newsom‘s plan to embark on our own redistricting in California if Texas follows through with its devious plan. California’s plan would only go into effect if California voters allow it and Texas continues its gerrymandering.

I agree that it’s time for such extreme actions when Trump’s administration is running roughshod over our laws, our rights and our democracy.

Jean Olds
Dublin

Unseemly redistricting
needed to counter Texas

President Trump and Texas Republicans believe the Republicans cannot hold the House in the midterm elections, so they are cheating to win by redrawing Texas congressional districts outside of a census year.

There is no umpire who can prevent the cheating in this political game because the Supreme Court has given Trump immunity for the cheating. When there is no umpire in a game, the team that is being defeated through cheating has no option but to cheat themselves or concede defeat. However, the running of our country is no game, and to concede defeat is to concede that this is no longer a democracy but a place where a minority can rule through cheating.

Unseemly as it is, California Democrats have no choice but to counter Texas Republicans’ cheating and thereafter try to enact a national law requiring fair Congressional districts everywhere.

Jay Chafetz
Walnut Creek

Trump’s appeasement
based on bad precedent

Re: “European leaders to join Zelenskyy at meeting in D.C.” (Page A1, Aug. 18).

As I listen to Donald Trump prattle on about Ukraine, I am reminded of 1938 when Neville Chamberlain of Great Britain met with another dictator and decided on the fate of a free nation under threat. After surrendering the Sudetenland to Hitler’s demands, Chamberlain blandly announced he “brought peace in our time.” World War II started the next year.

Churchill’s prescient comment, “You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour and you will have war,” was borne out tragically. I hope Zelenskyy will resist Trump’s calls for concessions to a naked invasion of his country, and I hope Europe and concerned Americans will oppose Trump’s appeasement and the dismembering of Ukraine.

Russia can and must be prevented from this conquest of a free nation. Failure to do so will only increase the likelihood of future aggressions and endanger world peace.

Roger Wood
Fremont

Preconditions would
have doomed talks

Re: “Trump bows to Putin’s approach: No ceasefire, deadlines or sanctions” (Page A4, Aug. 17).

That no ceasefire, deadlines or sanctions emerged from the Putin-Trump peace talks does not indicate Donald Trump was duped or failed in the talks.

If all sides insist on non-negotiable positions and nothing shifts, what’s the point of holding talks? Russia, which now holds the power in this proxy war, is defeating Ukraine on the battlefield. Ukraine can fight on, suffering more devastation and certain battlefield defeat, or as two-thirds of Ukrainians now want, it can seek a negotiated settlement. Vladimir Putin was smart enough to realize that an unconditional ceasefire is not tenable but that other terms are. Trump is also smart enough to know neither economic sanctions nor deadlines have been effective.

Thus, Putin and Trump talked. It is the first step toward peace. It is going to take time, effort and patience to come to a settlement. That’s how war-ending talks function.

Eleanor Levine
Oakland