Editor, The Smithfield Times:

I am politically conservative, living in harmony with politically liberal friends and neighbors. That should not constitute accomplishment. But these days, it feels as such. My liberal Democratic friends, the ones who are open and honest, tell me that they are in a pickle.

 

My Democrat friends are pragmatic in their views, support necessary cultural healing, but fear the ever-strengthening radical movement within their party — a movement hell-bent on foundational transformational change.

They fully understand that radical transformational change to our constitutional governance (for example, packing the U.S. Supreme Court with political partisans) will not serve the interests of their grandchildren.

My pragmatic Democrat friends are concerned regarding the speaker of the House’s sudden interest in the 25th Amendment. Their concern is well founded. The speaker is prepping the battlefield for the radical left to act regardless of who wins the election. Biden’s voluntary or nonvoluntary removal from the White House will elevate a person to the presidency that my liberal friends do not personally or politically support, a person with the most radical voting record within the U.S. Senate. They do not support the radical transformation course that Kamala Harris will plot as president. Quite a pickle.

But there is a way out.

For most of my Democrat friends, punishing Biden with a no-vote will not happen as that empowers the despised President Trump. They will hold their nose and vote for Harris/Biden and accept the risk (and associated guilt) of supporting a guy who, by all accounts, should be preparing a defense case as opposed to a bid for the presidency.

But my Dem friends can hedge against the worst-case scenario, that being a future President Harris. Trump-crazed Democrat voters across America can elect to no-vote every other Democrat candidate this election cycle. Every single one. Send the Democratic Party a message.

Do not vote for Bobby Scott. Do not vote for Mark Warner. You have the power to team with your conservative friends and neighbors for a better America. United, you can write an insurance policy against President Kamala Harris while simultaneously serving up necessary justice for the Democrats’ unforgivably corrupt, illegal, damaging and republic-threatening political behavior.

That will not turn the pickle sweet, but it will aid digestion.

 

Mark R. D’Etcheverry

Smithfield