Hoping for some change

April 01--TRAVERSE CITY -- It does not take long to learn that 90-year-old Ellin Salon and her son Charles Lakritz aren't fans of the commander in chief.

Visitors who step into their home are greeted with "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House" -- a book that paints President Donald Trump's administration in a harsh light -- sitting on a table. Talk with them about politics and their disgust for Trump likely will surface.

"I'm embarrassed to have him as our president," Salon said. "He is just not intelligent."

Salon and her son come from a family of democrats, stemming as far back as Mortimer Caplin, her first cousin, who became IRS commissioner in the 1960s under President John F. Kennedy's administration, she said. Salon and Lakritz voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

They expressed disgust with Trump's actions -- like his alleged misdeeds with women, plans to build a wall along the Mexican border and placement of family members in positions around him -- and hope he will be removed before the end of his term.

Some of their concerns lie with the future of the country's health care system as Trump and other lawmakers continue looking at changing the Affordable Care Act. Costs for some of Salon's prescriptions are rising and she fears leaders might make changes that impact her even more.

"I couldn't exist without Medicare and I would hate to think at some point they might start digging into it and using it and starting to throw it away," she said.

Salon supports a new, single-payer health insurance system and she is disappointed in lawmakers' reluctance to consider such a change.

The pair also bristled at the White House's immigration overtures.

Salon's father's parents and her mother immigrated to the U.S. from Poland. Allowing immigration helped form the country and allowed Salon's family to grow, she said.

"A wall is not going to solve anything," Lakritz said. "He should spend the money on border security and employ people instead of spending billions of dollars on a wall that's going to do nothing."

Salon has seen her fair share of presidents through her life. She recalled first voting for Franklin Roosevelt and watching many more take office, none giving her as much concern as Trump.

"There's some you like and some you don't," Salon said. "But he's dangerous. I really think he is a dangerous person."

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