The world is safe in the hands of Generation Snowflake

Letters to the editor: our readers share their views. Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

Thank you for publishing Catherine Dolan’s article on the younger generation volunteering to help clean up Valencia (“Generation Snowflake? I couldn’t believe what I saw young people doing in the Valencia floods”, Saturday 9 November).

When the media is chock full of news and comment about Donald Trump and bad news from Ukraine and the Middle East, it is good to be reminded that the future of our planet could one day be in safe hands.

What we need now is for the incompetent and corrupt leaders around the world to make way for the very people they – and some of us – have written off as “snowflakes”.

As we watch the evils coming out of Pandora’s box, remember that hope remains inside.

Simon Fisher

Sellindge, Kent

Warm touch of the ice maiden

Susie Wiles, the newly appointed chief of staff to the second Trump White House, will be an interesting character in Trumpism 2.0 (“Meet Susie Wiles, the ‘ice maiden’ who propelled Trump to victory – and his new chief of staff”, Friday 08 November).

Many, including Trump himself, are said to describe her as the “ice maiden”. Yet it seems her appointment is giving a little comfort to some devastated by the Republicans’ win.

With her at Trump’s side, apparently “‘the clown car can’t come into the White House at will”.

What comfort is that? There is only one clown that needs to be kept out, and he just won all seven swing states.

Ian Wingfield

Bamford, Derbyshire

Third time’s a charm

So now it’s official that the lunatic will shortly be taking over the asylum (“Trump wins Arizona to complete a clean sweep of the seven swing states”, Sunday 10 November).

I wonder how long after he takes over the White House it will be before he starts to talk about changing the constitution to allow him to stand for a third term in office...

Stephen Lawrence

Enfield

Where’s the democracy in that? 

Once in power, a party’s priority is to stay in power – but how do they do that? ("The right-wing agenda replacing Project 2025", Monday 11 November).

It used to be that political parties had beliefs and convictions, and they simply had to convince their electorate that they were the right ones and the best choice for them. To do this they had to know the electorate.

Parties that don’t realise that the views of the electorate and their sources of information change with time,

This year, Labour and the Republicans have been very successful in getting into power by telling the electorate what they want to hear.

To stay in power, though, they will now need to listen to their focus groups and watch their private polls, allowing both to influence their policies as well as what they say and do.

But is this really a modern democracy?

Dave Thomas

Bristol

Long live the DVD player

I read Kevin E G Perry’s piece on the movie Dogma with great interest – particularly when the writer noted that the film is not available on any streaming services and only ever had a limited physical release, meaning it is now practically impossible to watch (“Dogma at 25: How a controversial Catholic comedy became practically impossible to see”, Monday 11 November).

As many heralded the new era of streaming services, I was weary of abandoning my DVDs and Blu-rays for this new age. The loss of Blockbuster was only the start.

With the dominance of streaming services, hundreds of films and TV shows have simply disappeared. Any made in the past 10 years are unlikely to ever have had physical copies made. So, at the will of Netflix or Amazon, their very existence can simply be plucked away and deleted, along with all the hard work of the directors, actors, film crews, etc…

Streaming services are nothing if not a numbers game. If a piece of media doesn’t perform well or become a viral sensation, the plug is pulled almost immediately.

Yet my humble collection of plastic-cased copies holds precious pieces of art that either gained cult status later in life – or were finally recognised for their genius only after flopping at the box office.

The humble DVD player remains the last sanctuary against the power of streaming giants to make movies simply disappear.

Luke Fitzpatrick

Otley, Leeds