Mayor Steve Otto, and Gary Morris. Two world class liars.

 To the Editor:

One of the most troubling developments in today's political climate is the normalization of dishonesty. Too often, facts are replaced by rumor, distortion, and outright falsehoods. That style of politics has become closely associated with the MAGA movement, where loyalty sometimes appears to matter more than truth.

I have personally experienced this. Two well-known local individuals repeatedly spread false statements about me. When I confronted each of them directly with evidence showing their claims were untrue, neither acknowledged the facts or apologized. Instead, they portrayed being confronted with the truth as if they were the victims.

One example illustrates the problem. A local rumor-monger searched public records until he found someone in another state who happened to have the same name as mine. That unrelated individual had assault charges. Despite knowing—or having every reason to know—that it was a different person, he circulated the story as though it referred to me. Another individual repeated the same falsehood. Even after the deception was exposed, neither corrected the record or apologized.

The irony is that the truth is not difficult to discover. Anyone can examine the public records and determine what is true and what is false. But doing that spoils the game. Falsehoods are far more useful to those who rely on character assassination than verified facts. Once a lie is repeated often enough, some people begin to accept it without ever checking the evidence for themselves.

Healthy political debate depends on honest disagreement, not fabricated accusations. We can disagree about policies, candidates, and priorities, but we should never accept lying as a legitimate political strategy. Our community deserves better.