For a party so concerned with misinformation and disinformation (all on the right), I was surprised to see Charles Linquist’s op-ed of Aug. 29 (“We are united”) so brimming with both. If the premise that all is going swimmingly is a true belief and not a political ploy, then no counterargument will have any weight, as we live in two different realities (or rather one reality and one fantasy).
Let’s deal with Mr. Linquist’s points one by one:
Trump won’t admit he lost a fair election. This one’s true. I concede that the courts did not judge enough votes were proven to be illicit to have swung the election. A discussion of voter fraud and the ridiculous policies supported on the left regarding state election laws are beyond the scope of this rebuttal. However, the election was definitely rigged. Polls show enough voters would have gone the other way to change the outcome had they known about the Hunter Biden laptop, something that was simultaneously hidden and mendaciously reported as a Russian disinformation ploy by the activist mainstream media.
The New York trial was so obviously a political maneuver by timing, the ignoring of statutes of limitation and jurisdiction (the feds had jurisdiction and refused to prosecute), and the absence of viable charges that even referencing it as a valid attack is disinformation in itself.
Mr. Linquist defines freedom as the right to have an abortion (a highly charged issue that Trump’s appointees correctly re-assigned back to the states). I define freedom as not weaponizing the DOJ to go after right-leaning organizations, not giving Black Lives Matter rioters a pass (Harris posted bail for them) while prosecuting Jan. 6 trespassers to the full extent of the law, threatening to pack the Supreme Court when constitutionalists make decisions the left dislikes, and using a never-ending stream of executive orders to circumvent the Legislature that somehow can’t be reversed if a Republican is in the White House.
Defending a DEI hire (by Biden’s own admission) with the argument that she may actually be qualified is not only weak, but immoral. Hiring anyone based on gender, gender preference, or skin color is racist, evil, and bad for the country.
Equating Harris’ nomination (without a single electorate vote) by Democrat leaders in some smoke-filled room is not equivalent to Trump’s nomination not being in question because he had the votes. And I say this as someone who’s voted Trump but favored one of the other candidates in this go-around.
Characterizing Trump as “a narcissistic old man that knows little more than how to hurl insults ... against anyone who would try to ... stop him,” in the absence of recognizing the even greater flaws of Biden and Harris, is one of the signs of Trump Derangement Syndrome. I’m capable of perceiving Trump as intermittently boorish and unpresidential in his tweets and pronouncements and simultaneously recognizing his solid policies, policies that led to a true pre-COVID booming economy, international stability, and secure borders. His background as a businessman and not a politician contributed to this.
Biden never ran a business and, by the admission of an ex-secretary of defense, Robert Gates, “I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” His disastrous tail-tucked withdrawal from Afghanistan that set the stage for the current conflagrations in Ukraine and Gaza and the Russia-China alliance demonstrate that he remains with an unblemished record of failure. And Harris is reversing her stance on every major issue in a mad dash to the center that is unconvincing.
Harris’ view of the future, judging by her statements and actions in the past, will be a continuation of the Biden administration, with larger government, more wasteful government spending, more DEI, and continued disrespect in the international community resulting in more unrest and war. The effects of Biden’s open-border policy abetted by an ineffective “border czar” are yet to be fully realized. The “fictitious” contribution of these lax border policies to the rise in crime that can’t be seen by progressives and the infusion of terrorist cells that will likely be problematic during the next administration will continue to be aided by conflating legal (which the right favors) and illegal immigration, a ploy so highly favored by the left.
It’s the final piece of Mr. Linquist’s disinformation that is the most blasphemous: characterizing Trump as someone who thinks we’re a second-rate country. It’s Harris and company that wants fundamental transformation. Trump sees the need to turn away from far-left radicalism that favors open borders, characterizes keeping highly charged sexual materials away from children as “book banning,” surgery to transition children, and further expansion of the burgeoning welfare state in the setting of untenable debt, and a return to the values of our Founding Fathers that make this country unique, and great.
He’s got my vote.
David Puro writes to the Sun from San Luis Obispo. Send a response for publication to letters@santamariasun.com.