Some people just don’t know when to let go. Take (please!) a former NH politician and judge who seemingly has gone from an ‘eccentric’ persona to bizarre. Many in our state fear for his mental well-being and sincerely hope he takes a chill pill.

Politics can be nasty, especially when hatred rears its ugly head. Once the hate line is crossed, emotions take over and when a person becomes morbidly fixated on a person or thing, they are unable to distinguish fact from reality.

No, I’m not a mental health expert, but I have been around politics for many years and recognize the difference between truth and lies and fabrications. Somebody once asked me why I got involved in politics and I replied that someone has to do it to keep the uninformed voters informed. I can yell just as good as the next person at the television when the fake news presenters (no, they are not journalists) spew their misinformation and misleading headlines to the unsuspecting public.

Ay, there’s the rub.

Unfortunately, abnormal and obsessive Trump haters are unable to grasp reality, and in their zeal to whine about what they perceive is an ‘orange bad man’ they lose the argument because their emotional intelligence is diminished due to that hatred. They resort to name-calling and melodramatic opinions and misinterpretations instead of concrete arguments. They come across as unhinged, spouting ridiculous statements about Peru and Haiti in order to try to make an inaccurate point.

Their baseless attacks on anyone who doesn’t agree with them knows no bounds. All they have is the name-calling: radical; extreme; undisciplined; adolescent-leaning; election deniers; to name a few. They claim that the ‘MAGA’ wing of the Republican party were like disruptive kids in the back row during the vote for US House Speaker a week ago when a patriotic group of Republicans demanded certain concessions in the House before voting in a new Speaker.

However, what was completely overlooked (or perhaps it was just inexperience?) was the fact that the House Rules Committee and the vote to allow a single member to call for a vote of no confidence in the Speaker has ALWAYS been an established part of US Congressional rules since Congress was formed in 1789. It was the ruthless Democrat, and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) who discontinued those rules two years ago. She demanded complete control of her members. And, she got it. This is not leadership; this is a dictatorship. She didn’t stop there. She also removed another long-standing House rule, a “motion to recommit” that permits the minority party to change legislation on the floor before a vote. I bet she regrets that one now!

Talking about not letting go; reasoning with combative Trump haters as well as uninformed Democrats is challenging at times. A former Nashua Alderman and Alderman-at-Large recently chose to verbally attack me on my support of President Trump. This person sent an unsolicited letter to my home that bordered on dangerous rhetoric and harassment.

Where is the civility? The problem in politics today is uncivil hate speech. The current political cultural sphere has polarized the American voters into two competing ideological positions mostly based on the hatred of one man: President Donald Trump.

I could go on about Joe Biden’s long list of lies, gaffes, slip-ups, crazy things he has said, and made-up stories to score points with his audience that he has created during his 40+ years in American politics, but it’s hard to make a long story short.

Besides, I wonder how many ears would be covered up and eyes glazed over, and more importantly, how many voters would be honest and actually believe the truth behind Biden?

Di Lothrop is a resident of Nashua.

Newsletter