Letter: Brecht dissolves the electorate
Your support helps us to tell the story
This election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.
The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.
Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.
Neal Ascherson writes: "After the East Berlin rising in 1953, Bertolt Brecht is supposed to have made the ironic suggestion that the Communist regime should dismiss the people and appoint a new one." ("Are we the electorate they deserve?" 23 March). There's no supposed about it. These words are to be found in one of Brecht's most famous poems, "The Solution":
After the uprising of June 17th
The Secretary of the Authors' Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Which said that the people
Had forfeited the government's confidence
And could only win it back
By redoubled labour. Wouldn't it
Be simpler in that case if the government
Dissolved the people and
Elected another?
Philip Hoy
London N8
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments