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Regarding the March 19 front-page article “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/03/18/grocery-prices-election-wisconsin-biden-trump/" target=_blank>In Wis., a vote for Biden or Trump could come down to grocery prices</a>”:

I read through the list of potential causes of price inflation at Piggly Wiggly with increasing disappointment. This journey through supply-chain challenges, high consumer demand, avian flu and natural disasters was missing a mention of the primary source of higher prices: corporate profits.

<a href="https://fortune.com/2024/01/20/inflation-greedflation-consumer-price-index-producer-price-index-corporate-profit/" target="_blank">Studies have found</a> that <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/05/19/1177180972/economists-are-reconsidering-how-much-corporate-profits-drive-inflation" target="_blank">corporate profits account</a> for more than 50 percent of our current inflation. Egg and meat producers, dominated by a handful of multibillion-dollar companies, have <a href="https://apnews.com/article/egg-producers-price-gouging-lawsuit-conspiracy-8cd455003a3a40bab74d0f046d0f2c9d#:~:text=U.S.%20News-,U.S.%20egg%20producers%20conspired%20to%20fix%20prices%20from,2008%2C%20a%20federal%20jury%20ruled&amp;text=INDIANAPOLIS%20(AP)%20%E2%80%94%20An%20Illinois,originally%20filed%2012%20years%20ago." target="_blank">engaged in</a> or are alleged to have engaged in <a href="https://www.rfdtv.com/another-price-fixing-lawsuit-against-four-major-beef-packers#:~:text=A%20group%20of%20small%20food,millions%20of%20dollars%20in%20settlements." target="_blank">price fixing</a>, further exacerbating any external issues. While consumers pay the cost of — and inaccurately blame <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/candidates/joe-biden-2024/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">President Biden</a> for — the price gouging, the true source of unaffordable milk, meat and eggs sits in sleek corporate boardrooms, plotting the next price increase to coincide with the next quarterly earnings call.

Contrary to the impressions of the shopper who blamed President Biden for rising food prices in a March 19 front-page article, responsibility ought to fall squarely on the corporations keeping prices high to gouge the American consumer — and on the decades of unwillingness in Washington to combat the growing food monopolies.

<a href="https://foodandwaterwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/IB_2111_FoodMonoSeries1-SUPERMARKETS.pdf" target=_blank>Food &amp; Water Watch research</a> into the economic cost of food monopolies found that for nearly a century, corporations from fields to grocery aisles have consolidated their power and shrank the market. Consumers have been unwittingly forced to trade the illusion of choice for food system resilience, market competition and buying power.

Decades of failure to enforce antitrust laws and put consumers over corporations have enabled today’s crisis. The Biden administration has done more than any other this century to bring down food prices, including <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/02/ftc-challenges-krogers-acquisition-albertsons" target=_blank>suing to block</a> the Kroger-Albertsons grocery merger last month. But there is much more to do.

As <a href="https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2024/03/05/as-biden-looks-to-tackle-shrinkflation-new-analysis-highlights-extreme-stickiness-of-high-food-prices/" target=_blank>our research demonstrates</a>, the monthly grocery bill for a thrifty family of four grew by 50 percent between January 2020 and January 2024, and the largest grocery chains saw their revenue rise as much as 36 percent during that same period. If Democrats are to court voters on this issue come November, they would do well to endorse stronger actions to keep the food monopolies from wringing our wallets dry.

The author is the executive director of Food &amp; Water Action.

I was not happy to see the free ad for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/donald-trump/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Donald Trump</a> that appeared on the front page of The Post on March 19. As a Wisconsin resident, I subscribe to The Post for extensive coverage of national issues that my local paper can’t afford, not for anecdotes and feelings that can be selected from any community. I read to the end of the article and saw that The Post correctly put in numbers and facts to show that the economy is doing quite well under President Biden. But the damage was done.

David Rieck, Janesville, Wis.

Regarding Leana S. Wen’s March 13 Wednesday Opinion column, “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/03/11/long-covid-treatment-research-hope/" target="_blank">Hope at last on long covid — and long-ignored fatigue syndrome</a>” and March 21 op-ed “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/03/19/chronic-fatigue-long-covid-nih-study/" target="_blank">Debilitated by fatigue, she exhibits tireless grit</a>”:

I was so elated to read Dr. Wen’s columns about research into myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and the hope such studies might offer to those suffering from this condition and long covid.

While it is cheering that there are researchers dedicated to studying these illnesses and other post-infectious syndromes, finding explanations and treatments for these vexing problems might take time. So while I am extremely enthusiastic about this news regarding research for myself and the thousands of others suffering from these conditions, it is important to ask what can be done now to help us deal with the draining, depleting side effects that affect our everyday lives.

Many years ago, when I was a nursing student and training in a hospital clinical setting, I often saw patients in their hospital beds looking very dejected and downcast. But one day, many of the patients’ beds were empty. They had gathered in another room to attend a support group, and I was amazed to see them animated, smiling and talking to each another. I never forgot the difference that support group made in their mood and frame of mind.

During the past few years, I have searched for information regarding how to deal with chronic fatigue syndrome. And while I found recommendations for mindfulness, deep breathing, exercise, nutrition, pressure points, medication and therapy, nowhere did I come upon the suggestion of support groups for those with long covid. Becoming part of a support group provides an opportunity to meet people who have similar experiences, receive and offer support and comfort, share advice and express our feelings about our conditions with those who can truly appreciate the impact on our lives.

Until a treatment is found, support groups could be a powerful tool to help alleviate some of the suffering that these patients experience. More needs to be done to promote their availability and to make them accessible.

Regarding Eduardo Porter’s March 16 op-ed “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/03/11/democrats-working-class-biden-distrust/" target="_blank">Why working-class voters still don’t trust Democrats</a>”:

Though I’m a long-standing Democrat, I’ve often bridled at the party’s contradictory attitude toward globalization. Setting aside the certainty that the Republican Party has shown little interest in protecting the working class, especially organized labor, Democrats have done a poor job of pursuing two related policies to ensure that the clearly documented, long-term benefits of increased global trade are felt more equitably.

Specifically, Democratic leaders have been content to sign on to trade adjustment assistance programs passed alongside free-trade agreements. Ineffective and poorly utilized, such retraining programs never helped manufacturing workers move to more globally competitive sectors. Also important, and supporting Mr. Porter’s view that Democrats are limited by their skew toward the college-educated, is an insufficient focus on vocational schools or community colleges that can deliver the advanced calculating skills that today’s manufacturers require, without the time and expense of a four-year college degree. In the global economic race, we can’t just try to slow down our competitors with tariffs and barriers. We must also learn how to train ourselves to run faster.

The title and content of Eduardo Porter’s March 16 op-ed are provocative but, in my view, misleading.

The article is not about “working class” voters. As Mr. Porter made clear in his second sentence, his argument is about White, supposedly “working class” voters. This is an important distinction from working-class voters as a whole. And the op-ed did not identify “working class” in a useful manner. Using college education as an identifier is terribly misleading. All sorts of White, middle-income, self-employed people have never gone to college. Does that make them “working class”? It would be more important to look at both the sorts of jobs people occupy and their income to get a better sense of America’s income strata.

While Mr. Porter is absolutely correct that the Democratic Party establishment began its divorce from the working class with its embrace of neoliberal economics beginning in the 1970s, that school of thought was first embraced by the Republican Party. There was a lengthy fight in the Democratic Party between neoliberals and those who continued to embrace Keynesianism. Given this, why would anyone turn to the Republicans as an alternative to Democratic policy?

Further, if, as Mr. Porter wrote, White workers are skeptical of Democrats because they worry that a new president might reverse course, why not worry about what Donald Trump did and would continue to do if he were reelected — as well as what a Republican successor might do after Mr. Trump departs from the scene?

And here is the clincher: If the Democratic Party’s embrace of neoliberalism is the explanation for White workers allegedly moving to the Republicans — though, in fact, the White voters who are Mr. Trump’s base <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/11/13/white-trump-voters-are-richer-than-they-appear/" target=_blank>are richer than many assume</a> — why wouldn’t more African American and Latino workers be moving to the right, since these workers have disproportionately suffered from neoliberal economics? It’s true that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/03/08/trump-black-voters-election/" target=_blank>some Black</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/19/trump-poll-support-black-hispanic/" target=_blank>Hispanic voters</a> have shifted right in recent years, but not in numbers that would suggest a purely economic explanation.

In fact, something else is at work. White flight from the Democrats started long before the hegemony of neoliberal economics in the Democratic Party under President Bill Clinton, or even before the rise of the New Democrats and President <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/jimmy-carter/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Jimmy Carter</a>. Remember President Lyndon B. Johnson’s famous statement that with the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Democrats would lose the South for a generation? He was optimistic: It has been much longer than a generation. The shift away from the Democrats began as a direct response to the Black freedom movement and the reforms introduced as a result. Anyone remember George Wallace and his impact in both the South and the North?

While I appreciate Mr. Porter’s critique of the Democratic Party, in the United States, race is, more often than not, lurking in the darkness like a monster from a horror film.

Bill Fletcher Jr., Mitchellville, Md.

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