To the editor:
Election Day began for us when we went to the firehouse to vote for the new high school. It put a smile on our faces to see little kids jumping up and down with “vote” signs. They are the beneficiaries of the overwhelming approval of the two ballot measures to build a new Monument Mountain Regional High School.
After that, I watched election results until late into the evening. Those interviewed were asked who they voted for and why. Roughly half said they voted for the candidate (mostly Democrats), with the other half saying they were voting against Trump, even though he was not on the ballot.
Although I am sure Republicans won races somewhere, those considered bellwether were won by Democrats, and not by narrow margins. Prop 50 in California, three Supreme Court races in Pennsylvania, governor races in Virginia and New Jersey, mayoralty races (especially in New York City), and others.
As for Jack Ciattarelli running for governor in New Jersey, he was expected to possibly win, but saying he agreed with everything Trump has done did not sit well with voters, especially after Trump stopped funding the Hudson River Rail Tunnel project, a necessary link for New Jersey commuters to New York City, as well as for commerce in the Northeast and the country.
As he often does, Trump said out loud he did it to punish Democrats. He also said during a “60 Minutes” interview that if Zohran Mamdani won the mayoralty race in New York City, he would withdraw funds to the city because he will not support a communist.
Trump negatively labels people or things he does not like. AOC and Mamdani fall into that category. He refers to them as the brand of the Democrat Party, which of course is not true, any more than referring to MTG or Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama as the standard bearers of the Republican Party (as a sitting senator, Tuberville ignorantly stated there are four branches to the federal government: “executive, judicial, the Senate, and the House”).
People vote for candidates who support their views. AOC for example represents a district that is socioeconomically the opposite to the wealthy “Silk Stocking District” on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. That difference defines her voting record, as it should.
I briefly turned on FOX and was not surprised to see their panel make light of the election results. Like Trump, they referred to Mamdani as a communist. I assume Republicans in Congress will do likewise.
That clearly misses a lesson they should have learned. Follow Trump without asserting the oversight power given to you in the Constitution and regardless how they gerrymander states to increase the number of seats in the house that they are told by Trump they are “entitled to,” they should not be sure those previously rubber-stamped districts will fall in line. Red-state voters are hurt more by Trump policies than blue-state voters, so if MAGA faithful become aware of this, Republicans should not expect those voters to be sheep they intend to slaughter. That is the lesson of November 4.
To save themselves from being swept away in the 2026 midterms, the Republicans should immediately fully fund SNAP benefits andagree to permanently extend the Affordable Care Act and its tax subsidies, all of which will reopen the government. Instead, to avoid having a vote on releasing the Epstein files, at House Speaker Mike Johnson’s instructions, Republicans have been away from D.C. for more than a month, while they should have been in their seats representing the people who voted them into office, regardless of what Trump says.
Frank Gunsberg
Great Barrington
Click here to read The Berkshire Edge’s policy for submitting Letters to the Editor.
