Letter: Not so optimistic about our current situation

I appreciate the hopeful essay by Michelle Quist in the Independence Day edition of The Salt Lake Tribune.I am more pessimistic.She optimistically states: “Whether our farcical political atmosphere on our embarrassingly low-brow president or some other weakness is pushing us, I really do believe we’re trying to be better.”She then, rightly, reminds us of the bitter wisdom of Frederick Douglass in 1852, as he attacks the cultural hypocrisy condoning slavery in our pre-Civil War