Letter: Harris vs. Trump: the patriotic choice is clear

Yes, citizens, by all means: vote informed, vote thoughtfully, and most importantly, vote patriotically! Let’s circle around that last one. Voters who care about their country and its institutions have a choice between, essentially, two candidates, and the difference between them is stark, to say the least.

One of these candidates lied hundreds of times about the birth circumstances of a previous President (and infinitely finer person); has publicly made fun of a reporter’s physical disability; publicly had an affair with a woman while married to his first wife; had sex with a woman while his third wife healed from giving birth to his child; bragged to a “shock jock” that, because he owned the pageant, he thought it was cool to barge into the dressing room at Miss Teen USA to check out the talent; called for the death penalty for five Black defendants who were, as definitively as is possible, proven innocent, and continued that call long after that innocence was proven; bragged to a vapid TV personality that he, the candidate, believes himself to be entitled, by dint of his fame, to sexually assault women with his hands; has been held legally responsible for precisely that; swooned that he and the dictator of North Korea fell in love with each other; publicly sided with the brutal Russian dictator over the U.S.’s own intelligence agencies on a matter; tried to extort a foreign leader into digging up dirt on his presumed opponent by threatening to withhold Congressionally-approved aid; refused to concede defeat publicly or to call the winning candidate to congratulate him after getting drubbed; tried in numerous ways to overturn the results of a free and fair election, including calling on a state official and asking him to scare up just enough votes to win that state; incited a violent attack on the Capitol Building; said “who cares” upon hearing reports that his followers wanted to hang his vice president; pardoned more than a dozen of his criminal henchmen after being voted out of office; stated publicly hundreds of times that any result outside of his winning in 2024 would only be possible by “them” rigging the election (thus insuring Jan. 6: The Sequel); lied hundreds of times that Haitian people here legally are eating the pets of good, presumably White citizens in Ohio; torpedoed a bipartisan deal affecting the U.S. Mexican border because he feared it would make his presumed opponent look good (bravo, spineless GOP legislators); and most recently, hinted at using the National Guard or the army to arrest “enemies within” such as Nancy Pelosi. Regarding that last one, his toadies are offering an interesting defense, essentially saying that since we can’t believe anything that comes out of his mouth, it’s unsporting to hold him to account on that one.

Unlike all the bogus allegations launched by GOP hacks against Hillary, Obama, Biden and Harris, these are all true and easily verifiable with a rudimentary internet search. There’s video, audio, and/or photographs attesting to all of it.

The other candidate has done none of this. She can be a little “vague on policy,” I guess—if we are to consider as “vague” such goals as lowering prescription prices, stopping price gouging, mandating eldercare coverage, helping first-time parents and first-time homebuyers financially—but she has yet to answer a policy-oriented question with “we have a concept of a plan,” so I’m not sure what to make of GOP moaning on that score.

While there may be several reasons to vote for the GOP nominee—perhaps you believe that taxes are too high for billionaires, that the real estate tax deduction before he was in office was too large, that U.S. citizens don’t pay high enough prices for imported items, that women of child-bearing age must not be allowed to make all decisions regarding their bodies, that the evil Zelensky forced Putin to invade Ukraine, or that those damn foreigners are ruining the country—none of them involve patriotism. One can’t love a country while despising more than half its citizens.

The choice is clear for true patriots.

Terry Benoit

Port Chester