To the Editor:

About the political cartoon of September 12: Please don’t make horrible political divisions worse by repeating brain-bypassing, emotional-button-pushing, negative phrases, whether to describe Democrats, Republicans or independents. 

Tell me one stand Sen. Elizabeth Warren has taken that makes her anything other than a caring, rational woman. Consumer Protection Agency? The American Association of Pediatrics just announced their own review of research and industry-funded/distorted “research” into plastics’ effects on children and babies’ health. They concluded that the FDA and private industry has suppressed independent science for decades. The result? Babies and children with cancer. We do need protection from big industries whose heads can rationalize a few babies’ deaths away so long as they keep raking in the cash.

Look at what Bernie Sanders actually stands for — and why so many independents as well as Democrats supported him, especially young adults. Although his and Joe Biden’s age-mate, I would like to see younger candidates (I would include Warren because she isn’t so old) from both parties running for president and vice president in 2020, but with the same integrity and values and policies as Sanders and Biden: universal health care that stops America being the only country in the “advanced” world where you can go bankrupt from getting sick, even if you have insurance; protection from greedy corporations that kill us slowly with carcinogens in plastics, water and air; the same stringency for gun ownership as for driving a car or getting a fishing license. How radical is that?  

Let’s all try thinking and acting like Sen. John McCain, who disagreed without name-calling, who found ways to meet people with opposing ideas halfway and find sane compromises. A hero who endured unimaginable torment and stayed captive two-plus more hellish years because he wouldn’t leave his fellow captives behind while going free as an admiral’s son. The Republican who co-sponsored the campaign finance reform, which was later overturned in the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision to the everlasting regret of anyone who values democracy. Sen. McCain was a man who understood that many of the greedy rich — not all the rich — are destroying our democracy and making a mockery of all we purport to stand for.  

What appeals to young adults in the politicians whom your cartoon ridicules is their condemning big money donors in political campaigns, because they really are the root of all our country’s evils. 

Mary Jane Curry

Haywood County