Letter: Kent repeated the ‘big lie,’ now he waffles

Published 10:54 am Monday, October 17, 2022

Our democracy is at risk. Vote to preserve it!

“Tonight, I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain,” said Liz Cheney, co-chair of the Jan. 6 Congressional Committee.

Congresswoman Cheney is right — when politicians lie about the outcome of a free and fair election to gain and hold on to power, they not only dishonor themselves, but also undermine American democracy by undermining Americans’ faith in democratic institutions.

To win the GOP primary earlier this year, Joe Kent told ardent Trump supporters that the 2020 election was stolen. He suggested that those who stormed the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, were patriots.

By willfully lying about the fairness of the 2020 presidential election and then siding with the participants of an attempted coup, Kent gave aid and comfort to America’s adversaries and undermined American democracy.

America is facing numerous challenges, including inflation, crime, illegal immigration and the loss of woman’s reproductive rights. And while those issues are important to all of us, I believe the greater threat facing America is the loss of confidence Americans have in our democratic institutions that politicians like Kent create when they repeat the big lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

My voting decision this November will be easy. I will be voting to preserve our democracy. I will be voting for Marie Gluesenkamp Perez — Democratic candidate for Washington State Congressional district 3, and hope you will too.

FREDERICK LEHR

Grays River