Letters: Consequences of Thompson’s silence and actions; Still waiting for an apology

Consequences of Thompson’s silence and actions

How thoughtful of Congressman Glenn Thompson’s chief of staff to tell us via a CDT letter that there’s no connection between the riots on Jan. 6 and Thompson’s actions. The bigger picture reveals otherwise.

For four years, Donald Trump lied tens of thousands of times. Thompson said nothing.

More than a year before the November election, Trump began attacking Pennsylvania voting as fraudulent. Thompson said nothing.

Local election officials worked overtime to produce a safe and fair election that included expanded mail-in voting due to the pandemic. Instead of supporting them, Thompson joined seven Pennsylvania Republicans in Congress to overturn Joe Biden’s win.

After the election, Pennsylvania’s votes were counted and certified, with no evidence of fraud. But Thompson, citing zero evidence, added his name to a baseless Texas lawsuit challenging the certification in four battleground states, including his own.

As Jan. 6 approached, the date Congress certifies the Electoral College votes, Trump doubled-down on his voter fraud lie. Thompson said nothing.

On Jan. 6, after Trump incited the deadly invasion at the Capitol, sending shock waves around the world, Thompson continued to vote against Congressional acceptance of the Electoral College vote — without a shred of evidence of widespread voter fraud.

No, Mr. Chief of Staff, criticism of Thompson’s role in the violence at the Capitol is not a “knee-jerk reaction.” Actions, and non-actions, by Thompson during the past four years, created the conditions that led directly to the insurrection — and one of the darkest days in U.S. history.

Still waiting for an apology

So here we are three months since the election and one month since the Trump-provoked Insurrection of Jan. 6 and the Faithless Five who represent our area in Congress or the General Assembly — faithless for trying to steal the election — have yet to acknowledge the error of their ways. One cannot forgive an unacknowledged error. Why won’t they apologize?

Especially puzzling is the non-response from U.S. Rep Glenn Thompson and Fred Keller, who were in the Capitol when the barbarians stormed the gates and sent our elected representatives into a secure location. After that, they still voted to decertify Pennsylvania’s electoral votes.

Whose side are they on? Not ours.

Enough with pretending

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has issued a warning of a heightened threat of domestic terrorism related to false narratives about the 2020 election. I’m calling on Centre County representatives Corman, Benninghoff, Thompson and Keller to either set the record straight or resign. Their unproven claims of voter fraud are about an election that also elected three of them. If they believe the election was fraudulent then they need to resign because it means they too were not duly elected to their positions. Since they are not resigning, then they are clearly validating this election and therefore the time has come to not only stop spreading lies about election fraud, but also act as representatives of the people who have taken an oath to follow and uphold our Constitution and actively work to restore respect for our election process. Pretending our election process was “rigged” has resulted in violence in our nation’s capital and continues to stoke the fires of domestic terrorists. It’s time to stop being part of the problem and start being part of the solution.

Seeing ourselves in others

The mirror shows an abstraction, for we see ourselves truly mutually face to face where we open our hearts.

Today we see ourselves in a 16-year-old standing before a tent in Cox’s Bazaar, where it is impossible to socially distance, to find running water to wash, and where the virus rages in this camp in Bangladesh for refugees from genocide in Myanmar.

This girl in her need is a citizen of the morally uniting world. We join her when we answer her need. For our unity is no longer in the nation, but in the bright blue borderless world of our common belonging and the full stature of man. Here is our identity. You have seen this pictured from space. This picture, moral unity, has the force of law.