August 23, 2024
Dear editor;
Two friends and I attended a Fox & Friends event at Benny’s Restaurant, Friday, Aug. 23. After breakfast, one of my friends and I were standing outside talking to each other, when a man came by inquiring if he was too late. He then referred to a paper he was carrying from which he opined all that was wrong with Democrats, that they lie all the time, they don’t require any ID when you vote, they pick up busloads of blacks to vote illegally in Chicago, and that this time is our last chance to get Trump in again. I’m sure he thought we were akin to all he said. We were not.
When fact-checked Donald Trump has been found to mouth false or misleading claims more than 30,000 times, revealing his intent to save his own skin by lying. The biggest lie being his claim that he won the 2020 election.
Unfortunately, his MAGA and other followers believe his every word and too many are willing to revert to violence to validate his lies, such as the violence, death, and injury at the Capitol January 6, 2021, when Congress was meeting to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election that Joe Biden won.
So how do you respond to someone who believes Trump’s lies? Nod agreeably to avoid a possible confrontation? Tell him everything he told you is a lie? Or do as my friend and I did? We didn’t argue or attack his beliefs that we knew to be incorrect. Instead, we asked him a couple of questions hoping his answers might help him realize that believing the intentionally misleading lies of Trump and defending them are meant to destroy democracy.
My friend asked, “Are you a vet?” When he answered yes, she asked, “What do you think of Trump not serving in the military?” His answer: “A lot of guys didn’t serve.” Then I asked him what did he think of Trump calling veterans suckers and losers? His answer “I don’t believe he said that.”
Many of my friends and I will not endorse a lying-Trump whose best friends are Russia’s corrupt autocratic Vladimir Putin, the Communist State of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, racists, and Holocaust deniers. We believe in leaders who uphold American values that our founders wrote into the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights and who maintain our democracy making it better for all, not twist it to serve only one man who wants to destroy American democracy.
Judy Siedlecki, Oswego