Letter to the editor: America has always been great

Notwithstanding bloviation from the White House, America has always been great. Correction: It was, until the Project 2025 gang took over, shredding the Constitution, gutting our institutions and instigating a brain drain.

Let’s look at some previous examples of our greatness:

The Revolution freed this country from the tyranny of a foreign king and set up a representative government using as a model the Iroquois nation.

American World War II heroism and sacrifices helped to free the world from the tyranny of fascism.

The Salk polio vaccine freed the world from the scourge of polio, a disease that annually afflicted half a million people worldwide, including at least one president.

America’s moon landing was watched throughout the world, uniting people in the awe and wonder of space exploration.

Yes, we have had issues — slavery, forced displacement of indigenous people, labor battles for rights, hostility toward different waves of immigrants, to name but a few. Unfortunately, these have been only haphazardly addressed and often with violence. For example, Carnegie and Frick employed the Pinkertons to crush the Homestead strike. These two ultra-wealthy industrialists destroyed the livelihoods and lives of workers and their families for the crime, in their eyes, of wanting a living wage and decent working conditions. Today, we have their counterpart in the current administration and its slash-and-burn Project 2025 billionaires.

Isn’t it time that We the People collectively deliberate — “with malice toward none with charity for all” — to identify the problems directly impacting our lives and then work together to correct them?

Kathleen Acklin

Squirrel Hill