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Is Elise Stefanik the right representative for NY-21?

To the editor:

Elise Stefanik’s recent campaign ads tout her “North Country values” but her increasingly close ties with President Trump and his policies belie these claims. Driven by political ambition, her words and actions identify the 21st with Trump’s disdain for the principles of American democracy, and point to a fundamental lack of judgment on her part as to both regional and national interests.

The people of the North Country are a hard-working, pragmatic and largely tolerant bunch whose conservatism is tempered by a degree of restraint, common sense, communal responsibility and mutual respect. When Stefanik first entered politics in the district, she displayed a character consistent with these values. But her political identity has clearly changed with her embrace of Trumpism and her identification with the radical right of the Republican Party. Stefanik has thrown in her lot with a president who cares little for the values that have characterized American political traditions: international democratic leadership, respect for law and science, and, critically, fair and open elections. These are defining characteristics of our national identity, which the people of the North Country take seriously and, in many cases, have died for.

While Stefanik likes to call attention to the services she has provided for the 21st District, these pale in comparison with the incredible harm that has been done to the region as a result of the botched handling of the pandemic by the Trump administration. Locally, consider the consequences of the 19-day delay in reporting test results at Elizabethtowns’s Essex Center and, nationally, the roughly 190,000 Americans have died from the pandemic. This number dwarfs those of other countries where inspired leadership and sound policies have kept deaths down; the difference in the record can only be explained by the fumbling incompetence of the White House, its lies, and its indifference to the death and suffering of the people. How is it that after some six months, the richest, most scientifically and industrially advanced country in the world cannot implement a national testing strategy that would control the pandemic? Again, the only answer is found in failed national leadership. Do the people of the 21st really want a representative who, while talking up her services to constituents, endorses on the national stage and in the halls of Congress such a corrupt and incompetent leader?

We are now seeing Republicans across the country — including many in our region — abandoning the Trump regime out of concern for its authoritarian ambitions and threats to American political democracy. We should all hope that this will lead to the rebirth of the GOP as a principled conservative party and to a return to the politics of decency and effective government, which the people of the North Country expect of their leaders. Elise Stefanik has shown that such is not her own political project. She is not the right representative for the 21st District.

Richard P. Suttmeier

Keene Valley

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