Once again Dan Kershisnik has attacked my writing. This time I wrote about rafting, published here in the Rocket Miner on Nov. 21. His comment appeared on Nov. 28.

How will I ever be able to win? Why wont Kershisnik just invite me out for a beer at some fancy drinkery like Steves Wyoming Club? There he could advise me on the wisdom and moral superiority of Trump supporters like himself.

After reading my column and Kershisniks letter, a female confidant pointed out to me that when I wrote, they looked hot and fun in a hippy sort of way, it could indeed be construed that I was objectifying women. OK, I admit it, although this has never happened before, Kershisnik is right.

The same confidant, however, had a good laugh when she pointed out the irony of Kershisniks lecture to me, because, since when do Trump supporters worry about objectifying women? Remember the Access Hollywood tape? That alone should have made it impossible for him to become president, but some characteristics in Trumps presentation of himself have a super-glue hold on many people. These same characteristics repel me.

Whereas within Wyoming, in the presidential elections of both 2016 and 2020, I was in the minority, within the nation I have both times been within a large majority. The Electoral College was designed, in part, to keep clowns like Trump out of the White House, but it has failed. It didnt do so hot in 2000, either, but not nearly as badly in 2016.

In light of this, Kershisnik comes out sounding like a Hollywood liberal espousing political correctness. Next, hell be recommending that I take sensitivity training classes to heighten my awareness of the feelings of fascists and racists. Who knows, from there he might start telling me about whales and bison and reusable shopping bags, and the evils of fracking, but I bet he still wont be wearing a mask. Contradiction seems to be his way.

Perhaps my name touches off an attack-reflex in him against all things liberal. With pride, I consider myself a writer with liberal views on rural places. I respect conservatives when they are being conservative, which is a set of economic and social ideologies, but not when they are acting crazy and racist and ignorant, which in times past was not characteristic of conservatives. It used to be possible to have polite, logical discussions with them, but many of them have changed.

These past four years have witnessed the most mocking, insulting, and lying president we have ever had. Its with confusion and deep regret that so many Wyomingites have supported Trump these last few years. Will their flags and conspicuous signs and hateful slogans ever go away? To better understand these times, I have been reading up on Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple, the suicide cult. Ive also reread some pages about the rise of Adolf Hitler.

Contrasting the above characters with liberal Barrack Obama, whos worse offense was trying to get everyone health insurance, its easy to see that a sickness has invaded rural America; it would take a pretty good neighbor, and with courage, to point this out. I would say to people who are still supporting Trump, Who and what you support say a lot about who and what you are. When Trump has been disgusting, his supporters, his excuse makers, are by association also disgusting.

Still, I thank Dan Kershisnik for pointing out to me something that I should have put more thought and sensitivity into. That beer, however, will have to wait a while, as Im currently camping, hiking and exploring, and enjoying the relative warmth, of The Big Bend area of Texas. This is, however, another story for another time.

Much of Texas, like Wyoming, is pretty trumpian, but I was encouraged the other day seeing a small Bidden/Harris sign in the garden of a cottage; there is hope.

Tom Gagnon, Rock Springs

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Letter to the editor: Kershisnik was right | Rocketminer - Wyoming Tribune