Odd to demand high road in dealing with Trump, who fires off insult after insult to Dems

Editor:

Mr. Kinsey faults Governor Hochul for choosing to “berate a sitting President” rather than extend a hand across the aisle. I’d be curious to hear what standard he applies to the president himself.

This fall alone, Trump nicknamed Texas Senate candidate James Talarico “Talafreako,” mocked South Carolina’s Annie Andrews with an anti-transgender slur three times in a single post, branded Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed a “jihadist” and repeatedly called him “Mohammed,” and has called House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a fellow New Yorker, a “Low IQ person” and a “THUG.” None of that is a hand of fellowship.

So, it’s fair to ask why Republicans expect Democrats to take the high road after years of this, along with “owning the libs,” being told to “deal with it,” and being reminded that Trump is “our president.” And nothing discredits an argument faster than invoking Trump Derangement Syndrome. It belongs on the same shelf as “Let’s Go Brandon” and other schoolyard taunts. Still, it seems fitting that Mr. Kinsey made the effort to squeeze it into a letter to the sitting governor.

Mr. Kinsey points to Orleans County, where more than 70 percent of voters chose Mr. Blakeman, and Genesee and the rest of rural Western New York voted much the same way. But land doesn’t vote; people do, and most New Yorkers live in the cities and metropolitan areas that carried the governor. His claim that her win was “hardly a mandate” doesn’t hold up either. The 5 percent margin and turnout figures he cites come from 2022 results. By my calculations, Governor Hochul won this year by roughly 19 points, a 14-point swing from four years ago. Even his outdated figure would beat President Trump’s roughly 1.5-point popular-vote win in 2024, which we’ve been told ever since was a mandate.

As for the claim that other writers and I have offered no plan for New York, consider what his candidate offered. Mr. Blakeman promised again and again to lower utility bills and taxes, though he couldn’t lower taxes in his own county. At the same time, he strongly backed expanding data centers, among the most power-hungry facilities in the country, which drive up demand on the grid and, with it, the rates the rest of us pay. It’s hard to see how you lower utility bills by inviting in the biggest electricity customers you can find.

The rest of the plan, as far as I can tell, was fracking. Here the contradiction runs deeper. For years, Republicans across Western New York have decried solar farms for taking productive farmland out of use, yet they seem untroubled by hydrofracking, which can contaminate groundwater, send heavy truck traffic down rural roads, and leave wastewater behind. A solar array can be taken down and the field farmed again; a poisoned aquifer can’t be undone. Our region should know that better than most, since communities like Niagara Falls are still living with the legacy of radioactive and industrial waste. If protecting farmland is the concern, fracking is a strange answer.

Governor Hochul, by contrast, can point to an expanded child tax credit, a higher minimum wage, universal free school meals, expanded child care, and protected reproductive rights. That is concrete help for the very Western New York families Mr. Kinsey says are being ignored.

Mr. Kinsey also asks the governor to direct Attorney General James to stop pursuing the president. I’d remind him that New York’s attorney general is elected and operates independently of the governor. Unlike the president, Governor Hochul has no authority to weaponize the attorney general’s office against political opponents. Nor should she try to stop the attorney general from pursuing fraud, including fraud committed by the president. Voters seem to agree: by my count, Attorney General James won re-election by about 20 points.

As someone who has lived in New York nearly my entire life, I agree with Mr. Kinsey on one point: I love New York. But I also recognize that whatever economic stability upstate hopes to have depends on downstate. And for those leaving for other states, I wonder what life will look like in the next two to four years, as many of those ruby-red tax shelters are starting to flip blue.

I understand why rural New Yorkers feel like the “red-headed stepchild.” But Trump’s red-hatted stepchildren can’t hold up his Potemkin village forever. Affordability isn’t a word Democrats “made up,” and tariffs aren’t “making our country so rich” – just ask families paying more at checkout. New Yorkers are ready for a changing of the guard: younger leaders who reflect the electorate and want to make this state better for all, not some, and for the future, not the past.

Perhaps it doesn’t need to be said, but I’ll say it anyway: the governor doesn’t owe anyone an apology for her victory speech. New York’s majority has spoken, and it may be a hard pill to swallow that Mr. Blakeman represents the minority voice in this state.

Matthew Ballard

LeRoy, NY

formerly of Albion and Holley