Letters to the editor for May 20

Conservatives protesting shutdowns for COVID-19

“The greater good.” I’m pretty sure it used to mean something to conservatives. Same with common sense, community, and some sacrifice.

I get the people who are currently unemployed and in trouble financially — I empathize with them. But the protesters are just petty cult-conservative publicity stunts with people who don’t care about others and have their heads buried in the Trump reality where no one is really sick or dying. It’s disrespectful to the rest of the sane people who recognize there’s an active outbreak.

Opportunists love getting attention. They love it. It’s an addiction for them. As people with any addictions know, it can be infectious, and it can become the driving force in one’s life such that they lose perspective. And attention, bad or good, does nothing but feed into and increase a narcissist’s ego.

This is why populism these days is such a dangerous thing. We get Trump, we have Eyman running for governor, we have these people across the country, driven by actual fake news and false information. In this case: “The lib Dem governors are stealing our constitutional rights!”

Populism, of course, can be a tool for the good, for positive change, but it can also easily devolve into mob mentality. And mobs are generally sanctimonious, lack common sense and critical thinking, and instead follow whatever their “leader” says. Basically mobs are the same as cults.

I hope these people don’t get sick, I hope perhaps their parents or grandparents call them and chastise them.

Jonathan Ammons, Olympia

Don’t open too soon

Our President has been targeting May for the time that we who are staying at home can safely be Set Free to resume normal activities. Sure, we’re all going stir crazy. But Donald Trump appears to be more interested in our economy than the physical welfare of our citizens.

Instead, pay attention to a tally by Johns Hopkins University that says the crisis is far from over. Or listen to New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy: “The house is still on fire. ... We still have to put the fire out ... to make sure this doesn’t reignite.”

Or to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who states that we must use “science to guide our decision making and not political pressure.” And state Secretary of Health Dr. John Wiesman, who says that the virus won’t be stopped or contained until treatments and a vaccine are developed.

Please, people. Make your own decisions, based on fact, not political popularity.

Karen Strand, Lacey