Editorial voices from elsewhere
Editorial voices from newspapers around the United States:
“Not my president” was the heartfelt message protesters kept pounding last week in cities across the country, including Milwaukee and Madison, Wisc.
But the demonstrators are wrong: Donald Trump is very much their president. Unless they leave the country, they’re stuck with him for at least the next four years and are going to have to learn how to work with him and the Republicans who dominate Washington, D.C., and many state capitols.
We understand how the protesters feel. This editorial board argued time and again that Trump was unfit to be president. His personal crudity, recklessness and lack of knowledge on a variety of issues is disturbing. He showed disrespect for women and insulted Muslims, Mexicans, immigrants and the disabled. His campaign drew the support of some of the ugliest elements in American society.
Those who didn’t vote for Trump should fight for their concerns in every legitimate way, including peaceful marches. They should never give up their principles and keep fighting for their goals. But they also should respect the president and those who voted for him.
Let’s remember Lincoln’s words at the end of the Civil War: Let us “bind up the nation’s wounds” and “do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
Sometimes important moments in history can be seen only in hindsight. It can take time to know just when the tide turned and to identify the decisive factor.
We hope that this election will prove to be one of those moments when we tell the story of women in American politics. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s race for the White House did not succeed, but it could make the path easier for the next woman who tries to become the first female president.
At the very least, this campaign exposed deep divisions over gender politics in this country that will not be forgotten when the last votes are counted.
Being a woman didn’t have anything to do with Clinton’s success. Her life in the political arena, as a lawyer, first lady, senator, secretary of state and two-time presidential candidate, gave her an unmatched resume in modern times. She has worked harder, studied more deeply and fought through more adversity than any other figure on the political scene.
But there is no question that being a woman has made her struggle much harder. Starting with her law school entrance exam, where she was heckled by male students who accused her of taking a man’s place, Clinton has had to overcome hurdles only faced by women.
As a public figure she has been held to standards that her male opponents didn’t face. Her hair and clothing are analyzed as intensely as her policy proposals. She is called “shrill” when she raises her voice, while men are described as “passionate.”
It’s sometimes hard to determine how much of Clinton’s difficulties came from her own missteps in decades of public life. But a clear double standard was in evidence when she was compared to Donald Trump during this campaign.
Clinton did not break through the highest and hardest glass ceiling, but her historic campaign still matters. For the last year, every boy and girl has been able to look at a woman and see a plausible occupant of the world’s most powerful office.
Slowly but surely, marijuana legalization is coming across the country. Medical marijuana was legalized in Ohio as of Sept. 8. Yet many locations are working hard to make it illegal to get medical marijuana into the hands of those with a prescription.
Communities across the state are taking advantage of a loophole in the state’s medical marijuana law that allows individual municipalities to ban the cultivation, processing or dispensing of medical marijuana. This comes at a time when measures in four states passed making recreational marijuana legal.
Medicinal marijuana is legal in 27 other states, and as communities work to deal with that new reality, slapping a ban on it under the guise that “all drugs are bad” is not going to prove to be a successful long-term strategy.