In Search of Ways to Cope in the Trump Era

More from our inbox:

• How I Pray
• Regrowing New York City

Credit…Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

To the Editor:

I intend to emigrate from within. My wife and I immediately decided that we are no longer giving our evenings to watching MSNBC and CNN. (I suspect that we are not alone and that their ratings will tumble.)

Bring on movies (which I believe will now boom as they did in the Depression), TV mini-series and sports. I especially look forward to the rest of the Rams season. Then there is basketball, an enjoyable bridge to baseball and the Dodgers and Shohei Ohtani.

I’m an artist, and that will now provide an even more welcome diversion. Considering that much of my life has been devoted to the Republican Party at the local, state and national levels, I find this once-unthinkable retreat from being engaged in politics necessary but also sad.

Sandy Treadwell
Ojai, Calif.
The writer is a former chairman of the New York Republican Party and a former member of the Republican National Committee.

To the Editor:

The aftermath of the Trump election reminds me of my breast cancer diagnosis in 1997. I was a divorced mother of three young girls, and friends marveled at my optimism. I was scared and depressed but held onto hope — even though I faced surgery, chemotherapy and radiation — because what choice did I have?

In much the same way, today we have no choice but to stay engaged. The events in my lifetime seemed insurmountable. I protested against the Vietnam War, for civil rights, for voting rights, for abortion rights and even for the right of girls to wear pants at my high school. Much of what appeared to be unattainable came to be.