The current trend of angrily refusing to participate in basic, common-sense public health precautions during a pandemic that has killed over 800,000 Americans is exactly that, a fad with a pretty limited lifespan. And no, I’m not hoping anti-vax/anti-maskers die of COVID, just suggesting that people will soon tire of their hysteria about established science and medicine as “government tyranny.”

Looking to the future, under-40 Americans broadly reject racism and anti-gay bigotry while favoring sensible expansions of socialist policies like universal health care, tuition-free college, public preschool, paid family leave, environmental regulations to protect both human health as well as ecosystems and vulnerable species, and the labor rights of working Americans. They also understand basic science and medicine, and understand what cooperation toward a common goal means, in this case preventing additional preventable deaths due to an epidemic disease.

I’m an old guy myself, but I’m all in with these younger folks. Our current system favors concentrations of money and established political power and influence, further enabled by a religious culture that assumes that older men have all the answers. As an older Idahoan myself, I respectfully suggest that we don’t have any such monopoly, nor should we.

Chris Norden,

Moscow