Facts, once unassailable, have become, well, difficult to quantify. People make up or repeat lies, especially on social media platforms and other online spaces, and people believe them, think what they read or hear is true, is a fact. As it turns out, those lies can be dangerous. We’ve all witnessed it at the national level, but it’s also happening right here in Western North Carolina. 

When I asked a friend in the north of England what people there think of our recent election, he did not hold back. 

“The chief reaction here generally is one of utter incredulity,” he wrote. “There’s a sense of bewilderment at the number of people, apart from his most rabid supporters, who could actually vote for the creature, allied to a sense of wonder at a political and legal system which could allow it to happen.” 

To the Editor:

Helene brought destruction and chaos! Homes, businesses, cars, people washed away, roads and bridges washed out, people cut off from aid, etc. MAGA voters have brought a national storm upon us all and chaos is resulting.

With North Carolina’s Republican-dominated General Assembly still dead-set on refusing to provide meaningful relief for mountain communities hit hard by Hurricane Helene on Sept. 27, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper traveled to Washington, D.C., with a delegation of western leaders, appealing to higher authority for help.

To the Editor:

The 2024 presidential election revealed one thing in crystal-clear, proof-positive, light-years beyond any reasonable doubt comprehensibility, that the ability and capacity of the average American voter to simply (but so importantly) distinguish between fact and fiction, the ability to grasp (and choose confidently) between truth and falsehood, the aptitude necessary to seek out and determine right from wrong, to diligently and with purpose contrast good and evil, and lastly, the ability and the practiced competence to differentiate and choose the honorable from the dishonorable — no longer exists. 

In the midst of the most important and crucial presidential election in my 39 years of existence in this country and, perhaps, also that of my now elderly parents and long-gone grandparents, I decided to order a New York Strip Steak, medium with sautéed onions. 

To the Editor:

I wish I could blame the outcome of the recent presidential election on yet another “misfire” (as in 2000 and 2016) of our arcane and thoroughly undemocratic Electoral College system.

To the Editor:

The liberal media, including TV personalities and “journalists,” were really shocked over the Trump victory. “Oh, the humanity!!” It is almost comical to see the culture elites who believe that they are endowed with wisdom and understanding to be totally dumbfounded, particularly when they tell us how we should think. 

While it certainly appears that a “red wave” washed over the United States on Nov. 5, that’s not exactly the case in North Carolina, where Democrats held onto critical Council of State offices and made solid gains where it really counts — in the General Assembly. 

To the Editor:

I still remember September 27, 1953. That was the Sunday my brother, Greg, and I were baptized and committed our lives into following the way of Jesus Christ. From that day at Second Avenue Methodist Church in Rome, Georgia, I have attempted to live as a person of faith.