After reading Doug Selwyn’s column Understanding trauma in the schools [Aug. 24], I still blame Democrats for keeping kids out of school for so long. Since Selwyn is the chair of the Franklin County Continuing the Political Revolution educational task force (quite a mouthful), he and the Democrats he spoke with for his article don’t point fingers at fellow Democrats.

Thankfully, Donald Trump wasn’t blamed in the article. You may recall that he was a voice of reason during that dreadful period. Trump wanted America to open up, not shut down. The Democrats wanted him to shut up.

Selwyn says “COVID has left an entire generation of children potentially traumatized.” Ya think? He “spoke with teachers in Massachusetts and across the country and they reported that they were seeing more outbursts, more physical confrontations, inappropriate language, and more students seemingly unable to simply stay in their seats. They seemed to have forgotten how to be in school.”

The writer and the teachers he spoke with did not mention Dr. Anthony Fauci (a Democrat) or Randi Weingarten (a Democrat and plagiarist). Weingarten is the American Federation of Teachers president. The AFT “lobbied the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on, and even suggested language for, the federal agency’s school-reopening guidance. The AFT and its affiliates have long been one of the most reliable and deep pocketed donor constituencies of the Democratic Party,” the New York Post reported.

Weingarten and Fauci should spend the rest of their lives in prison for what they’ve done to America’s children. Selwyn also writes, “Preschool teachers reported that many of their children had seemingly missed developmental milestones through their first years spent in isolation, living with overly stressed parents trying to survive.”

Republicans knew that kids should’ve been in school all along. The people who were at risk were the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions. And we should never forget that it was OK for Democrats to leave their homes so they could protest in the streets, set fires, and attack the police after the death of George Floyd in 2020. But sending children to school was unthinkable.

As for masks, Democrats never apologized for making us wear those foolish things. If they were so effective, why were we locked down? And since masks didn’t fully prevent us from contracting the virus and giving it to others, why did we have to slap one on when we went into a store? You may have noticed in your travels that some mothers are still masking their children. If adults choose to overreact and have their faces covered 24/7, fine, but face coverings on kids 4½ years later is nuts.

In case you didn’t hear, Baystate Health has issued another pointless mask mandate. But I expected this since there’s a presidential election in the near future.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, the real threat to this country is the Democratic Party, not Trump.

Julia Duncan lives in Northfield.