Thanks to Mary Elizabeth Hollmann and Hank Shiver for their letters to the editor on Aug. 11 and 17. Compared to the ugly “the sky is falling” rhetoric that somebody else wrote on Aug.18, their letters were a joy to read.
Ms. Hollmann gave credit to the amazing job our election officials did during the presidential election in the midst of a pandemic. Why legislators are proposing ways to prevent them from doing a good job in the future perplexes her. Instead of legislators congratulating them for a job well done, they introduce bills that target these hard-working election officials as if we needed protection from them! What the heck?
Are these Republicans blaming our election officials for voting fraud that exists only in their minds? The real fraud is in the voting restrictions they are hoping to implement. Making it harder for minorities to vote makes it easier for them to win! They have no shame.
Mr. Shiver tells us George Wallace knew, as Donald Trump and Greg Abbott know, that open racial hatred is the easiest way to get elected. Bullying and sleazy-style campaigning was popular with Trump, and Abbott is copying him. Does he really think that if he bans masks in schools, the anti-vac, anti-mask and antidemocracy voters will vote for him? Maybe they will, but what he’s doing is definitely wrong. Putting school kids in danger to win over supporters is moronic, not courageous.
During the Roosevelt years and World War II, conservatism became what Professor Raymond English calls “the forbidden faith,” the words carrying connotations of “stupidity and selfishness.” I was too young to know what conservatives were up to at that time, but if they were acting like the conservatives of today, apparently they haven’t changed much. Much has changed in the past 80 years, but apparently not their thinking. It’s mystifying.
Italo J. Zarate, Brownsville
