A condensed version of this letter was accepted for publication by the Portland Press Herald. Unfortunately, it didn’t make it into today’s paper so I am sharing it my way.

November 7, 2022

To the Editor:

On Saturday, at a small gathering for Eucharist, my wife, an Episcopal priest, surprised us when she offered a prayer for a peaceful election. Imagine, praying for peace on election day in America. That would have seemed preposterous before January 6, 2021.

We might have prayed for those in some Third World country standing up to a dictator or an Eastern European nation trying to break away from Communism.  Maybe even for southern Black Americans who dared to register to vote back in the 1960s. But never for ordinary Americans exercising their democratic privilege and responsibility.

Perhaps it’s time to re-read a speech by the only woman in the Senate in 1950, Maine’s Margaret Chase Smith. As a freshman senator, she had the courage to stand up to the mighty Joe McCarthy, imploring her party (and his) to “not ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny—Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear.”

Other than the two members on the January 6 committee, where’s that moral courage in the Republican party today?

Arthur C Benedict

9 Sandpiper Road

Peaks Island, ME 04108

arthurcbenedict@gmail.com                                      (207) 766-2781