Commentary: In their golden years, this isn’t the country they expected to be living in. So what now?

Resident of Montebello ROSA MARIA JUÁREZ96, he does not like what is happening to the country, and in these tumultuous times, he has a strategy to spend every day.

“I’ve always followed the news, but I don’t want to see it now,” Juarez said. “I don’t want to feel depressed … instead of happy, as I am when I wake up.”

Avoid Daily News from President Trump Attacks against the JudiciaryThe Constitution, the media, political enemies and foreign countries are only part of the Juarez game plan for survival. It also remains in motion, leading to the Rivera Senior Center Several times a week for early exercise classes in the morning and outdoor walks of up to two miles.

But she is not a superwoman, so it is impossible to protect himself from the newspaper of newsletters of the capital of the nation, where Trump said this week that he would like Stop and deport US citizens And have them locked in foreign prisons.

“We are a country that is going down, like Titanic,” said Juarez. “I hope no, but what do we do?”

For the most part, I heard the same sense of despair, along with anger and fear, when I contacted more than one box of a certain age and asked if this is a drama that they expected to be witnessing in their golden years.

Not at all, said Bernard Parks Mr., former head of LAPD and councilor of the fiscally conservative city. “I never thought about my life that would see a person with 34 serious crimes elected as president,” Parks said. “The world is the other way around.”

On the other hand, in the eyes of some Trump supporters, the world was the other way around until it turned it.

“I am extremely happy that the country is now directed in the right direction, even with chaos and some problems,” said Norman Eagle, a resident of Green Status sticks that recently left me a note to argue that I exaggerated the Riske or Potential threats to Social SecurityMedicare and Medicaid in a recent column.

Eagle said he believes that Trump’s rates, which have traveled the world markets, caused fears of a recession and Panic unleashed Even among some of his own followers, he will have possession of the country’s benefit. And he hopes that the president’s efforts to get rid of waste, fraud and corruption will serve as a model for future administrations.

“Another important hope that I have that the crazy ideology and extreme progressive thought will disappear from the American scene and return to Mars, where it probably originated,” Eagle added.

RESIDENT OF LA CAÑADA Trent SandersThat he frequently leaves California’s liberal politicians in emails for me and my cream dishes, he believes that Trump is usually on the right path three months in his term, but with some warnings.

“I think most of what you are doing is the right thing, but too fast and too much,” Sanders said. And with “it is not enough to think before action.”

Among Trump’s detractors, there is no tolerance, and there is no end of the complaint list, which include everything from the decrease in retirement funds to Trump’s hug and his head statement. Ukraine began the war That has killed thousands.

“I’m ashamed of my country at many levels,” he said Estela LópezDirector of a commercial improvement district of the center of Los Angeles. She regretted, among other things, the cruelty of “ruling bite” of the cuts of wholesale jobs in the federal government and the “destruction of an important medical research, the vital information of public health and the dismantling of the protections that safeguard our food, air and water.”

“The track in front of me can be shorter than the one behind me,” López said, “but I will prefer to face it with all available intelligence and information thanks to the scientific advances in which we have invested and now I will seem to believe that they are not.”

“I never thought I would be living a constitutional crisis, but that’s what it is,” he said Jane Demian Or Eagle Rock. She said that democratic principles have done for what we have done: “Three coeutal branches of the government,” for example, they are being challenged by the Maga gangs, and Republicans hide. “

Jeffrey Mulqueen from Seal Beach It has a name for all this:

“The world has experienced fascism in the past and we went along that path in the United States,” said the retired school superintendent. “Consider Trump regime’s patterns as society with fear, feed fear with false information” and threaten to expand the kingdom by conquering Canada and Greenland.

Ernest Salomon from Santa Barbara, almost 90 years old, said he and some of his immediate family escaped from German extermination fields, while other relatives perished.

“I see many similarities between Trump’s regime and what happened before Hitler Tok’s power. Fear, agitation, racism, lies, compensation and more,” said Salomon.

“Democracy,” he added, “is in danger.”

“I’m Vlyy and scared. Especially for our grandson,” he said Jairo Angulo Or West la, who houses a particular disdain for Trump’s clique, yes, men will not admit that he won “the emperor has no clothes”, and for the millions of Democrats who sat in the last elections.

“Selfishness, apathy and greed have driven us at this time,” he said Nick Patsauras Or Tarzana. “We are witnessing what Plato said about 2,000 years ago:” The price that good men pay for indifference to public affairs must be governed by evil men. “

Alice Lynn, Or Pacific Palisades, he said that while fighting with the limitations and loss involved in aging, he is now witnessing the tramp of ideals in the center of his existence.

“I have never felt so desperate and fearful,” Lynn said. “It’s simply more than I can understand … all the problems I have fought over the years, I marched, organized to, to achieve good changes in our society, are now unraveling.”

Meg Fairless, or Simi Valley, fears for the coming generations. “Our first grandson was born in March,” Fairless said, “so I hope that, as a nation, we can unite, to learn the power of courtesy, respect, commitment, acceptance, acceptance [and] Be a country that is safe and happy that he grows up. “

Rosa Maria Juárez told me that when he approaches 100, he does not know if he will see changes for better in his life, but he hopes that his children and grandchildren do it.

“I can do my part, it is even just a pinch,” he said, he tells me that if he sees someone who seems isolated or marginalized, in his upper center or elsewhere, he takes over connecting with them.

Denny Fereidenrich Or Laguna Beach has two grandchildren and a third in the way.

“That is why 20 of my friends and I are in the process of forming the grandfather’s brigade,” Freidenrich said, who is particularly concerned about attacks against judges, lawyers and courts. “By defending the rule of law now, our collective hope is that we will leave our grandchildren the greatest gift of all: freedom.”

Congratulations to Fredenrich and Juárez for his good works. Meanwhile, in demonstrations throughout the country, crowds are growing. Tens of thousands attended a Los Angeles protest Last weekend entitled by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-FT.) And the American representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Dn.Y), who later touched his tour of “Oligarchy of Lucha” to Coachella.

Congratulations to them also for revitalizing voters, while many abandoned democratic leaders shoot and breastfeed the hangover of defeat. But can the left wing of the fractured party build enough support to make a difference in two years or four?

A friend of mine who attended the Los Angeles rally said that although it was an exciting attack against current leadership, Oye did not listen to a coherent and winning plan to break down the ruling party.

So that is my next question, and I do not only people in my age group, but also of those who occur to them:

What is the best way to follow?

Steve.lopez@latime.com