R-e-s-p-e-c-t

Respect is a misused and over used word. Like racism, we use the word but don’t know what it means or how to use it.

In the last five years of extremely partisan politics, our elected officials, in many cases have been called everything but their name. President Trump seemed to be the butt of much of this nastiness while others did to a degree. There’s been little or no respect for our elected leaders at any level.

Respect is “a feeling of deep admiration for someone as a result their abilities, personal qualities or accomplishments.” Someone who is a leader and someone you will follow. Someone with unquestioned integrity.

The reason this is so important is that the next president has simply got to unite this country and be a leader we all can respect and follow. We can’t continue to badmouth our leaders and hate those elected to govern us. We are better than that. And we can’t continue electing people who are just politicians in it for fame and fortune.

We need to elect someone we can all unite around and support. We did it with FDR and we did it with Reagan.

I’m hoping that someone with these qualities will step up. Some that seem interesting to me are Gov. (R) Ron Desantas of Florida, Congress Woman (D) Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, Senator (R) Ted Cruz from Texas, non-politician Candice Owens, and middle of the roader actor Matthew McConaughey. (He may run for governor of Texas).

Obama became a rich man as president. It should not be the goal of our elected leaders to get rich while on the job, however

Jim Gardner

Palmdale