Ha, you didn’t think you had even a smidgen of a chance of being published though, did you? Why, after reading your very clear, intelligent, thoughtful op-ed, I immediately knew it was doomed because you forgot to put your “feelings” in there and to use the currently accepted woke buzzwords like “oppressed, disadvantaged, unhoused, economically disadvantaged” and so on and so forth. With the woke mind virus having consumed a huge portion of Lewiston, in my mind I imagine you are there trying to survive like in a Day of the living dead movie haha. You’re surrounded.
I also thoroughly enjoyed your writing above, and I have a suggestion or thought but it’s one of those things where I/you know the answer already[probably]. Here goes: What if you were able to sit down with one of the woke/liberal politicians and interview them for your piece? Now, you might have to be bad and not tell them exactly what you are writing, maybe tell them you are doing a piece about the changing demographics of Lewiston and how the town is evolving to support the changes, something like that. Not sure if that would work or set off their BS alarms…but with Liberals if you act like you just care so much about the poor immigrants’ plight that you could cry (can you scrounge up some tears maybe, that’d be good), it might work.
The reason for my suggestion is so that you can weave that into your book as sort of the “why” Lewiston has morphed from all the great things you said it USED to be 15+ years ago, you know? You can ask this liberal person all about their thoughts and feelings regarding the immigrants, their needs and woes, what the city can/is doing to meet those needs, and what their view of Lewiston might be in 5, 10, etc years. What do they hope to achieve with throwing open the doors to the city for everyone, no matter the cost?
I think if you had that in your book, like a section on the woke mind virus and how it has affected the liberal residents of Lewiston, it might help the reader understand the sheer lunacy and impracticality of inviting in hordes of poor, dangerous, uneducated immigrants who (as Trump says) are not doctors, lawyers, engineers…meaning they were NEVER going to positively contribute to Lewiston in any way, and instead only spread like a cancer around the city, draining public coffers, stressing ALL city services like fire, police, schools, hospitals. I always think about the hospitals I guess because my sister is a nurse and she tells me that whenever illegals come in (she’s a nurse in Austin) and have a baby, get a broken leg fixed, have a family member spend a week in the ICU, etc that they just waltz out without paying and the hospital knows that those tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of costs the hospital incurred caring for those ILLEGAL aliens will NEVER be recouped and the hospital simply sinks further into the red. Here in Texas, ALL (except the private) hospitals in south Texas are ridiculously in the red, with many having to close their doors because they simply cannot pay the workers as they have no money. It’s disgusting.
Eh, sorry I went off on a tangent but I realize that the biggest problem with my suggestion is finding a calm, rational liberal who can express their thoughts and views without immediately bringing up their feelings or doing what they always do and blaming all these made up boogeymen (white supremacy, the patriarchy, toxic masculinity, colonialism, etc) for the current ills of the Lewiston…of course, they may not even want to admit that Lewiston is falling into decay and heading off a cliff, because in their distorted vision they think that they are saving all the immigrants from assured death and persecution in their native lands (lol, the white savior complex).
Sorry, like you I can type pretty fast and i just wanted to share my ideas. But please keep writing, it sounds like there are many of us who really enjoy your posts and writing style.
.