Letter to the Editor: Response to MAGA letter: Biden was right

In a recent Letter to the Editor, a reader complained about how President Joe Biden’s speech at Independence Hall made him, an ex-military officer and a “Make America Great Again” Republican, feel badly (“Am I a danger to our democratic constitutional republic?” Sept. 22).

I’ve read the speech, and I think the president hit the nail on the head.

Whether you’ve been in the military or not, if you’ve bought into the MAGA ideology, you’re involved with a dangerous movement against our constitutional order.

How I see MAGA:

It’s a movement that tried to disenfranchise 81 million Americans who didn’t vote for the MAGA candidate in the last election. Some in the movement continue to demand that the person who lost the popular and electoral votes be made president. All of them seem to believe President Biden, the clear winner of the election, is illegitimate.

MAGA is a movement that’s working overtime to undermine future elections by manipulating state and local election laws, so only their preferred candidates can be elected.

They support authoritarian politicians, who want to dictate their MAGA philosophy to all Americans.

They approve of the rioting at the Capitol — the insurrection against our constitutional electoral process that attempted to overturn a fair election.

Biden didn’t accuse all or even most Republicans of playing with fire in these ways. But the MAGA crowd — well, he called it like it is: Their hyperpartisan behavior is a danger to our democracy.

A majority of MAGA supporters are probably true patriots, but I believe they’ve been conned into supporting a movement that’s anathema to our democracy. If you don’t like your elected representatives, vote against them — but don’t try to manipulate or overturn elections when your candidate loses.

Ed O’Dell

Dover