It was so very discouraging to see comments from iconoclastic writers spouting more claptrap comments even after the election. The fact that these appeared only three days after the election has to mean they were written almost immediately after the results were clear by folks with completely closed minds wrapped around ideas over a generation out of reality.

Now is not the time to continue to find fault but rather a time to find answers. It's time for them to get over themselves. What is good for the country is the only valid question. We have to get behind new ideas and new solutions and stop trying to go back to the ideas of old white men. This requires some knowledge of the current demographic makeup of the United States, but also knowledge of political science, macroeconomics and government. I don't see that here.

We are no longer a nation of dominant white males of the old school, connected to a good old boy fraternity, we are now a polyglot of nationalities of diverse needs and desires. It may not seem so in Belleville, but is evident almost everywhere. More than 40 percent of the electorate is non-white.

People cry for democracy and we, as a country, want to export it. Well, this is what it looks like. Every person has an equal chance to be heard.

It is time for us to stop whining and start trying to figure out how to seek a consensus to enable the country as a whole to not only survive, but succeed in a changing world. Obstinance and complaining about it won't solve our problems anymore than continued doubt about global warming will protect us from super storms.

Joseph M. Reichert

Belleville