Dear Editor:

The angry white men who have flocked under Trump’s banner have every right to be angry. We have seen the American dream slowly evaporate. Our standard of living is in decline while minorities seem to enjoy an unfair advantage. Their outrage is righteous.

But it is also misdirected. The decline in living standards in the USA has many causes. The job market has soured due to off-shoring of jobs and technological displacement. Our tax laws favor the wealthy while shifting an ever greater burden onto the backs of the American wage earner. And the reduction of protective regulation that has unleashed a rapacious oligarchy on the American public.

If anything, the angry white men have a greater common cause with minorities than the current racist political climate would have us believe. The attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion, and bans on books or teaching about race relations will do nothing to improve the lives of white wage earners. Instead it is calculated to create division and ignorance, and with this division, the oligarchs who have engineered this, rule over us all.

A better and more race neutral approach is to create access to universal quality public education, affordable and equitable healthcare insurance, an industrial policy that serves workers, not just Wall Street, a secure retirement, and a level playing field for small family run businesses. Isn’t this what we all want?

This is our America, but over the years the wealthy elites have bought and paid for our political parties, our senators and legislatures and even our judges. It’s no wonder that we are not getting a fair shake. The people who have voted for Trump have made it abundantly clear that things are not working out for most of us, and they are right. But to put an oligarch in charge is like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.

If we want to make America great, let’s make it great for all of us.

Fred W. Nehring

Boothbay