Appeared as Letter to the Editor, The East Hampton Star, July 23

Price to Pay
Springs
July 20, 2020

To The Editor:

We all want nothing more than to get on with our lives without worrying about contracting the coronavirus. While we have done our part by working from home (or being furloughed or laid off) during the lockdown, wearing masks, and socially distancing, the Trump administration has failed to do its part. Incredibly, in an interview this past Sunday, the president was still minimizing the seriousness of the virus, and falsely claimed that the U.S. has “one of the lowest mortality rates in the world.”

Like a petulant child, Trump keeps demanding that the economy get back to normal, as if by simply saying it will make it so. Apparently he is incapable of grasping the fact that in order to get back to a world where children go to school, adults go to work, restaurants have patrons, and stores have shoppers, the virus must first be suppressed. And so the country staggers on, buckling under climbing hospitalization rates and more than 140,000 American deaths.

In November, let Donald Trump know that there is a political price to pay for his malicious incompetence. Vote for Joe Biden, who has the humility and intelligence to listen to the advice of medical experts. And let our congressman, Lee Zeldin, know there is a price to pay for putting the interests of a delusional president before those of his constituents. Vote for Nancy Goroff, Democrat, who will harness her years of scientific training to craft policies that are firmly based in fact, not fiction.

Sincerely,

CAROL DEISTLER