Columns/Opinion, Letters to the Editor

Aren’t we better than political mudslinging?

Stewart B. Epstein, Rochester, N.Y.
I am not writing this to support any political candidate. I am writing this to make a point about something that needs to change in our country.
After taking a hiatus for a few months, an anonymous and nameless Twitter site is up again and is insulting and mocking and trying to humiliate a political candidate for Congress (who I do not support).
It is called “Fake Rachel Barnhart.” (Barnhart is running for the Democratic nomination for the 25th House District in New York) This kind of thing bothers me and offends my sense of human decency, fairness, respect and justice.
I am known for having a good sense of humor, but I find nothing funny about publicly mocking and insulting someone and making accusations such as that she has an “outsized ego” (as if that is some kind of rarity among political candidates) and is somehow a “prom queen.”
No one deserves to be treated like this, whether or not the accusations are at all valid and justifiable. This mocker and insulter should at least put her/his name to this rather than being anonymous and nameless.
That seems cowardly. I am putting my name to this letter. Why doesn’t this person do the same?
I’m a graduate of WVU and was once a professor there. This is not how I was taught or ever taught the way we should be treating each other in this country. Surely, we are better than this.