For someone who served, it hurts to see racism divide us Conspiracy theorists have disrespect for poll workers
I am old enough to remember when disrespecting our brave men and women in uniform or desecrating the Stars and Stripes was enough to induce our collective outrage. We would vilify the perpetrators, boycott professional sporting events and brand those who dare cross the patriotic line as antiAmerican.
Have I been misled all my life to believe that the single most important thread that binds us together and transcends religion, politics and other prejudices is love for country? Was I duped into holding our symbols of democracy, especially Old Glory, as sacred? To be clear, I have always suspected that those most offended by demands for social justice were merely feigning patriotic anger to mask more sinister, deep-rooted beliefs.
Case in point, outgoing President Donald Trump’s defiant image emblazoned on the American flag and flapping wildly in the back of so many pickup trucks — or littered with pride across the rural communities of this great land — would suggest that these so-called symbols of freedom and democracy are free to be discarded in the pursuit of indignant righteousness. It seems your politics, or maybe more correctly the color of your skin, is what determines who in this country can exercise the unquestioned right to trample on the soul of our democracy with impunity.
If this election season has taught me anything, it’s that racists, devaluing the life of those who look different and threatening violence upon those who dare to challenge the MAGA crowd, are apparently the latest symbols of patriotism. The purpose of this new level of hypocrisy is clear: Stake out your territory, further divide the country and cede power to no one.
As an African American who gave this country 35 years of dedicated military service, it troubles me to stand by and watch the systematic unraveling of a once united America.
Robert Jennings, Reynoldsburg
The millions of Trump supporters who claim the presidential election was somehow stolen at the ballot box are really saying this: Many thousands of poll workers, from states red and blue, Republican and Democrat, have no integrity and were all involved in a vast conspiracy to throw the election to Joe Biden.
What a massive insult that is to so many of our fellow Americans.
Paul Van Doorn, Columbus