There’s an angry wingnut in my town who writes furious letters to the editor of our local paper. Reading his rage-o-holic letters is like watching someone illustrate a Sean Hannity episode in cartoon form, drawn in poop. This guy is a big Trump fan, obviously, and before the election, the letters praised Trump and/or attacked his enemies.
When I moved back here a few years ago and discovered the anger-coot’s oeuvre, I submitted saucy, subtly insulting rebuttals that were often published. My husband told me that was mean because the letter writer is an angry, scared and probably lonely old fart. That’s undoubtedly true, but I think it’s unhealthy to leave bullshit unrebutted.
You can’t counter everything, but it’s important to speak up, IMO. Of all the “this is how we got Trump” takes, the one that rings truest to me is that too many people capable of rational thought believed that ignoring bigotry and lies would marginalize them. Tragically, it allowed them to flourish.
Anyhoo, my epistolary war with the anger-coot over Trump was short-lived: earlier this year, the paper’s publisher wrote an editorial explaining that he was specifically banning letters about national politics. My husband said this was probably due to my rebuttals.