I cannot believe the audacity of Marcia Kelbon to scold Democratic voters in our area after the November election. Apparently this is when we’re supposed to all self-reflect and realize the error of vociferously rejecting the Republican Party and their standard bearer Donald J. Trump. Woe is the Republican business owner who feels shunned, woe is the county conservative who thinks liberals are mean. The GOP literally ran on mass deportation (of citizens even!) There were wall-to-wall advertisements preaching hatred towards the trans community. Now the Democratic voters are supposed to take the higher ground and try to understand local voters who chose a proven sexual abuser and 34 count felon as their president? 

Kelbon would like to pretend that Donald Trump being president elect is incidental to conservative ideas, but if the last eight years has proven anything, it’s that he embodies them.

Selfishness, greed, mistrust of the other, these are the hallmarks of conservative politics and we see it every day.

Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos both took a knee and gave money to Trump’s inaugural committee. The publisher of the LA times wants to start to use balancing AI to make sure “both sides” are being heard (truth be damned!) The Washington Post, a supposedly progressive paper, refused an endorsement of Kamala Harris because of instructions from Jeff Bezos and yet somehow there is a dearth of conservative voices and the Port Townsend Leader needs to fill that gap? 

I am so tired of sore winners. I’m so tired of conservatives playing the victim and scolding progressives, even in victory. I’m tired of the strange conceit that if liberals would only become less insufferable, then conservatives wouldn’t have to vote for such awful people. It’s the rhetorical equivalent of a bully asking “Why are you hitting yourself?” as he grabs your wrist and batters your body.

Kelbon is asking us to embrace our conservative neighbors and ignore their moral choices and I refuse to do that. Anyone who looks past Donald Trump and his cronies’ vile agenda because of mere economic reasons has failed a test of ethics.

Donald Trump himself recently said it’s very hard to bring down the price of groceries, so despite his whole platform being based on making things more affordable, it was all a lie. A lot of us saw that coming, in fact, the large majority of voters in our county did.

Nigel O’Shea

Port Townsend