Letters to the Editor

Voting MAGA is voting hate

To the Editor:

As my grandmother used to say, the MAGA party “doesn’t have the sense it was born with.”  

The MAGA presidential candidate — a multiple-times-bankrupted felon convicted of sexual assault against one woman and of covering up his illicit liaison with another to protect his reputation — has nothing to offer against his opponent, the current vice president and former California attorney general and senator from the state with the fifth largest economy in the world (see Japan, California, India).  

However, because his opponent is also a woman, he sees fit to denigrate her using the insult insignificant men always throw at women — that she got where she is by doing sexual favors for men.  

Meanwhile, the MAGA vice presidential candidate has an opposite, but equally skewed, opinion of a woman’s value. He has implied on multiple occasions that if a woman is not married or married but not raising children, she is worthless. He prefers June Cleaver to Sally Ride, Harriet Nelson to Hillary Clinton.  To readers younger than 60, sorry, I had to go back to 1950s to find role models the vice presidential candidate approves of.

And finally, the MAGA candidate for North Carolina governor may be the most reprehensible of all. He has said that “once a woman is pregnant it is not her body anymore.” He believes all non-heteronormative people are “filth.” He is antisemitic and anti-science. I’ll stop there.

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As you contemplate who to vote for this fall, think about how these candidates could change your life or the lives of people you love. True, they would need the support of Congress, the state legislature and the courts, so it’s unlikely their misogynist, hate-filled opinions will come to fruition. However, their character will inform every part of their governing agendas. Would you invite any of these men into your home for any reason? Clearly not leadership, or even friendship, material.   

Like Oprah Winfrey, I am an independent voter who believes the first hurdles a candidate has to clear is are they decent humans and are they principled. My opinion: without even considering policy positions, voting the MAGA ticket is voting for hate and against decency and human rights. 

Karen Patterson

Highlands

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