Feb. 12, 2026 Editor, The News-Gazette:
This is an obit. However, I have no objection if you publish it on the letters page rather than with obituaries. It’s in keeping with letters so many readers seem compelled to write on a national topic to a local newspaper. It is beyond me why so many enjoy writing on an unhappy subject while living in paradise. I plead guilty.
As for the death, it was a political party, the Grand Old Party. Not only did the Republican Party lose its grandeur, it lost its way. This death is especially painful if you believe in limited government, free global markets and a strong national defense.
Those were the charges given to the Republican Party. Now all that is left is the other major political party — the one that prefers to play Santa Claus than govern. Now there is no stopping Washington from using its credit card and forwarding the bill to those not yet born.
What happened? Did the elephant find that its burial grounds was its self-proclaimed swamp? Or was the party subject to the same human weakness you and I possess — good people who sometimes prefer to do nothing? Your choice. I prefer the latter.
The polls now say that the Republican Party was not helped when it nominated a NY realestate virtuoso to run a bigger show in D.C. Countries and tariffs should not be confused with properties and rents. Countries should be your friends. As the saying goes, you can’t have too many friends. As for tariffs, they are worse than rents, a one-way tax. I understand the recipients of our tariffs can return the favor.
I always expected better and bigger things from my elephant party. Now, I’m a man without one. It hurts. That’s it. No need to add pain to your junk mailbox. DAVID REYNOLDS Rockbridge County
