Truth, empathy, integrity and competence. Remember those? They used to be desired attributes for a politician. Now, they appear to be detriments in an election. What is revered nowadays seems to be an ability to lie convincingly, deny things you said an hour or a day ago, instill fear into the electorate and declare that you’re the only answer to that fear, declare our country to be in chaos and painting “foreigners” as the cause and promising that you alone will make everything great again.

In the “good old days,” the Republican Party used to bill itself as “the party of family values,” but nowadays they probably should be called the party of covering up and defending sleaze, sexual assault, vulgarity, child abuse, white male dominance, dishonesty and total incompetence. And the horrible thing about this shift is that it is embraced and promoted by extreme right-wing Christians who actually say that Trump was sent by God. This is so beyond the pale that it shakes me to my very foundation.

Republicans in Alabama say that anyone, no matter what horrible things they have done, is okay as long as they have the “R” after their name. And Democrats have said similar things, calling themselves “yellow dog Democrats” who would vote for their party no matter how bad their candidate was, even if he were a yellow dog. This is wrong!

We need to get away from the division and the labels and begin again to value facts, kindness, honesty and experience. If we continue to accept vile, illegal and unethical acts as normal, our country will go the way of Rome.

We can start by changing things right here at home and electing honorable and competent people to office like Ginny Dickey for mayor and Dr. David Garcia for governor.