Submitted by Mark D. Fichtel, Greenwich
I feel sorry for Brian Raabe. Anybody who could write such a hate-filled screed, and who is obviously suffering from a possibly fatal case of TDS, must be one of the unhappiest people on the face of the earth, not just in Greenwich.
I’m not a Republican. I don’t agree with everything the Trump Administration (first or second) has propounded or done.
However, I support its effort to rid the country of the millions of illegal, unvetted immigrants who ignored our laws to come and now want the full protection of our laws that they scorned. Having lived through 9/11, I’m acutely aware of the danger of illegal aliens in our midst. Unfortunately, too many aren’t or don’t care. We allow over a million legal immigrants into the U.S. every year, and there are good arguments to increase that number, but not the way the Democrats did from 2020 to 2024.
I support an all-sources energy policy, not one that closes down fossil fuel energy plants (oil and gas, as well as coal) to satisfy a propagandized climate ideology that has cost many countries their economic well-being (see Spain and Germany) and ignores other views such as Steven Koonin’s, as discussed in his book, Unsettled. The “green policy” supporters ignore the collateral costs of off-shore windmills (not just dead birds), the studies showing they are actually a higher cost energy than traditional sources, and that Connecticut’s outrageous electricity costs are, in many respects, due to the no-gas-pipeline policy of Democrat-run New York State, abetted by our own state government.
I support cutting unnecessary expenses caused by fraud, waste, abuse, and laziness. If we don’t reform our spending and get it under control, both the U.S. and Connecticut face financial Armageddon in the not-distant future (see France today). Someone’s ox will be gored, and I have as little sympathy for the moans of Republicans when their favored programs are trimmed as I do for the Democrats.
I support our freedoms in a society where one’s opponents aren’t called “Nazis,” racists,” or “witch-burners” in an effort to shut them down and prevent any opposing views being aired. I oppose efforts to “defend” our freedoms that include cabals of those in government (FBI, CIA, Justice Department, courts, and others) to thwart or overthrow those the voters have chosen (or want to choose) to manage our country. I fear that the way the law was weaponized by Trump’s opponents from 2016 through 2024 has done long-lasting damage to the fabric of our polity, which I can only hope isn’t irreparable .
I do not support a local or state government that would tell us how, where, and when to build housing, with no regard to the impact on our community, just to satisfy some vague sense that doing so will solve Connecticut’s economic problems. It will not, as long as all the other deficiencies over which the Democrats have presided remain unchanged. Perhaps the Republicans wouldn’t do better, but the long years of overwhelming Democrat rule in Connecticut tells the tale.
I want my local and state government to keep its unions from gouging pay and benefit hikes from us citizens that are 50% above what the private sector can achieve, thereby driving our taxes to among the highest in the nation, harming Connecticut’s economy and everyone here. Would Republicans do better? Who Knows? Have the Democrats done what they should? No.
No political party has a monopoly on good or bad, but, in my view, when Democrats, with a legislative supermajority and the governorship, baldly gerrymander the state’s representation so that even though Republicans got 40%+ of the vote in Connecticut in 2024, all 5 seats in the House of Representatives are Democrat, and it’s highly unlikely Republicans will see any real influence in our state legislature, Democrats have no room to crow that they are “defending democracy.” Brian’s complaint that Fazio’s platform mirrors that of the current Trump Administration is laughable given the slavishness with which Connecticut Democrats follow the national leftist program of spend without regard to the damage doing so does to our long-term outlook.
No emojis here.
Mark D. Fichtel