I could not help but notice the bumper of his red pick-up truck. The Trump-Pence sticker told me who he had supported in 2020 and the military bumper stickers proclaimed he was a veteran. Disappointing but not as disappointing as what followed. A more recent bumper sticker went deep into the sewage with “Joe and the Ho Gotta Go.”

I get not liking someone’s politics, but this wasn’t a discussion over tax policy and the need for wealthy people to keep more of their money so they can trickle some of it back to us. (I worry that there aren’t enough billionaires.) It was not a reasoned debate as to whether climate change was real or rather it really was a socialist, communist, liberal-woke conspiracy abetted by corrupt thermometer makers. No, this was something ugly. This message carried the idea that while President Biden need not be our president, his vice president, Kamala Harris, was a prostitute. God in heaven forbid that we should have a prostitute so close to being the president of the United States.

I regularly read three newspapers. (I am old. We seniors do such things.) Is it possible I missed a story of some tawdry account of illicit sex involving a Playgirl magazine centerfold? Had Kamala boasted of grabbing men’s genitals while waxing nearly philosophical: “And when you’re a star, they let you do it?” Is she alleged to have had sex with an adult film star and then paid out $130,000 to keep him quiet lest some question her character? Were non-disclosure statements fundamental to her relationships? Has she been found liable for sexual assault? The answer to all these questions is no, no, no, no, and no.

If the political messages on this truck (or others like it for that matter) are any indication, Harris’ sin is being a woman in a position of power. There is a word for that kind of sentiment, and it speaks not of making America great but rather of the days when gender equality was truly a fiction.

We ought to strive for better. Truth derived from verifiable fact ought to back our decisions. We seem awash in innuendo, misinformation, and not all that well disguised racism, misogyny and xenophobia. We need better foundation stones on which to steady the nation.

JOSEPH R. FISCHER

Northumberland

Submitted by Virtual Newsroom