To the editor:

Michael Lewinski in his April 15 letter to the editor, “Rid us of evil,” addressed New York’s Democratic House of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal for a “Green New Deal.” In his letter, Lewinski posed the question of how Thomas Paine would deal with her?

Lewinski said: “He would size her up and conclude she is no different than China’s Gen Secretary Xi Jinpring, the man who brought the Chinese Communist Party’s virus which plagues the world today.”

The writer added: “Like Xi Jinpring, AOC lies, makes outrageous claims and endangers others. Just as the United States is going to shun and shame China, American citizens should do likewise to her and her comrades in government.”

Lewinski’s attempt to link the young Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives to China and Communism is rooted in “McCarthyism.” Merriam-Webster defines it as a tactic used to publicize unsubstantiated allegations of political views held to be subversive.

According to biography.com, Ocasio-Cortez was born to a working class Puerto Rican family in the Bronx. At Boston University she majored in economics and international relations. After graduation, she returned home because of her father’s death in 2008 from cancer, taking low wage jobs working as a waitress and a bartender to keep the family afloat.

Running on the Democratic ticket for representative of New York’s 14^th District, Ocasio-Cortez defeated Anthony Pappas, the Republican candidate, in the November 6, 2018 general election by a vote of 79.2 percent.

Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman ever elected to the House of Representatives at age 29, had an asteroid named after her in 2007 — “23238 Ocasio-Cortez.”

In a Feb. 17, 2014 letter to the editor in the Evansville Courier and Press, Lewinski wrote, “Progressives have gutted the Constitution,” by passing the 17^th Amendment to the Constitution requiring U.S. Senators be elected by the popular vote rather than chosen by state legislators.

Lewinski doesn’t seem to appreciate America’s broader view of democracy.

—S.E. "Bud" Durcholz
Ireland