Letters for Friday, April 5, 2024

‘Christian’ nationalism

Anyone still wondering what “Trumpism ‘Christian’ nationalism” is need look no further than the harassment of the University of Utah students in Coeur d’Alene. There it is, in stark black and white.

Michael Cain

Spokane

Fueling the flames

Good job Mountain States Policy Center. Smooth move bringing conservative firebrand Kayleigh McEnany to the Coeur d’ Alene Golf and Spa Resort a mere 17 days after the “alleged racial harassment” incident triggered the immediate and thorough tarring of the city, region and state.

No doubt this event will go a long way in reducing tensions, rehabilitating reputations and mitigating negative PR fallout.

Of course, Idaho could go all in and amend their “Esto perpetua” state motto to include “Ut in faciem tuam,” thus reading; “It shall be perpetual, so … in your face.”

William Baxley

Spokane

Idaho is too great for hate

No one in the state of Idaho should be “shocked” by the racism directed at the University of Utah women’s basketball team and others on March 21. It is no secret that North Idaho is identified as a safe haven for “so called” hate groups akin to what we remember about the now defunct Aryan Nations.

Disturbingly, ever more individuals with racist ties are moving to North Idaho and bringing their rhetoric with them. For example, look who showed up to disrupt the press conference regarding the incident, none other than the controversial David Reilly.

Reilly has ties to the Unite the Right group and participated in the violent 2017 Unite the Right white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Reportedly, Reilly now has ties to the Idaho Freedom Foundation, whose chair Brent Regan also chairs the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee and appointed Reilly as a delegate to the 2022 Republican party’s state convention. Even our governor sends mixed messages.

One day he eliminates diversity statements in all government, but on the following he claims to reject racism in all its forms.

We need a strong, consistent message from our governor and all other state leaders: Idaho is too great for hate. Period.

Teri Ahrens

Eagle, Idaho

Christian nationalist spreading hate

Didn’t Jesus once teach, “Love your neighbor as you would love yourself?” The “self-described Christian nationalist” who protested at Coeur d’Alene’s anti-hate rally scorned Christ’s lesson. When Nixon used the phrase “law and order” and Reagan spoke of “welfare moms,” their supporters knew exactly to who those two Republican presidents were referring. Now, I sense that the term “Christian nationalist” is merely a kinder, gentler euphemism for white supremacy. Can you imagine Christ protesting an anti-hate rally? Nor can any authentic Christian … this era’s silent majority. Recall that “All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

Bruce Market

Spokane

Sad to see

Bummer to see, for some of us anyway, some Zag fans, actually a lot, go from throwing debris on the court last month, to how they greeted and treated the St. Mary’s team and, in some cases, giving the cold shoulder to their supporters both inside and outside the Arena at Fridays session in Spokane.

Daniel Brajcich

Spokane

Are we really surprised?

What is wrong with you people? You are shocked when a team with players of color are harassed and heckled in Coeur d’Alene when the state is one of the primary followers of the man who tried to make the U.S. a dictatorship? Plus, it’s a state that encourages people to treat women as chattel with few rights?

What is wrong with you people? You are surprised and amazed that Spokane has a fentanyl problem when I have had to downright fight with anesthesiologists at both local hospitals to keep from taking fentanyl?

Think people, think! It’s not harmful!

Wilma Koski

Spokane Valley

Don’t leave vets alone with Cathy

So glad McMorris Rodgers has thrown in the towel. It will take a generation to repair the damage she has done to her district. Recently, again not surprisingly, she voted against her own constituents by voting no on the government spending mini (omnibus). What a slap in the face to our vets, defense spending was in the bill, our two VA centers, one in Spokane and one in Walla Walla, would have needlessly shut down if it had been up to her. What a colossal failure her 20 years in congress have been. Time for term limits!

Stephen Cross

Walla Walla

Will he be missed?

Brian Keeling (“Big inkwells to fill,” March 20) gushes all over the now-departed Shawn Vestal and his “superb opinion pieces.”

We can only guess as to how much Vestal’s, and The Spokesman-Review’s, “yellow journalism” has contributed to a succession of repressive, draconian, ineffective and unconstitutional gun laws here in Washington, all of which are aimed, squarely, at the law-abiding.

Will Vestal be “sorely missed?” Not by those of us who cherish the Second Amendment, freedom and liberty!

Curt Stone

Dayton, Washington