Dear Editor:
In my last letter to the editor, as Chairman of the Greenbrier County Democratic Executive Committee, I shared my thoughts on the three core principles of the Republican Party: The Protestant Ethic, Trickledown Economics, and Learned Helplessness.
Two Republican friends, Frank Tuckwiller and Bonnie Isaacs responded.
Frank Tuckwiller asks: “Will Greenbrier County Democrats follow the national democratic lead and defund the police forces; support Antifa’s burning destroying and looting, the legalizing of a wealth tax, confiscation of our guns and enforcement of Socialism?
The answer is: that is not where the Democratic Party is leading. These are Republican boogie issues, used to scare small children.
Three core values of the Democratic Party are empathy, trickle up economics, and hope.
EMPATHY: Democrats empathize with working people, blacks, victims of gun violence, prisoners, women, children in cages, the poor and those who pursue their happiness by different paths.
Democrats promote education, a living wage, affordable health care, safe workplaces and other programs to advance the human race and to save our environment.
Democrats don’t tolerate violence, but we don’t turn a deaf ear to protesters either.
Republicans politicized not wearing face masks. I wear a mask out of respect for the many essential workers who risk their lives, earning their living, providing necessities.
Our Republican Attorney General Morrisey has joined the Republican fight to end affordable health care. This can only be explained by a callous lack of empathy.
Second, TRICKLE UP ECONOMICS: Franklin Roosevelt first used it in the Great Depression. Barack Obama built eight years of economic growth using trickle up economics.
Bonnie Isaacs quoted “An old boyfriend, a Republican businessman who said, “when the rich get richer so do the poor.” Apparently, he never studied economics or history. What Bonnie meant was the when the middle class prospers, so do the poor. The middleclass benefits with trickle up economics.
Third, HOPE: Democrats believe in the hope that human problems can be solved by humans, if we try. As John Kennedy once said, “Others ask why, I ask why not.” Democrats may not agree on the solution for a more perfect union, but we are the party that at least is looking for it.
Paul Detch
Chairman Greenbrier County
Democratic Executive Committee
