Dan Seaverns’s letter arguing that Rep. Vicki Kraft, R-Vancouver, should rely on facts before offering her opinions (“Kraft should rely on facts,” Our Readers’ Views, Jan. 16) was sound, but probably a waste of ink.
Vicki Kraft may be suffering from American Idiocy Syndrome. AIS is a spectrum disorder that ranges from the amusingly benign to the scarily dangerous. Sufferers at the benign end of the spectrum are basically harmless and require no intervention other than to save their families from embarrassment. These include, among others, new-age spiritualists, flat-earthers, alien abductees and party clowns.
At the other end of the spectrum is a long list of seriously dangerous sufferers for whom some intervention is usually justified. These would include your anti-vaxxers, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, religious nationalists, disaffected youth with access to arsenals and believers in Reagan economics.
I can’t know where Rep. Kraft falls within the spectrum. But, based on her repeated antics and the fact that she’s an elected official with some influence, I’d guess it would be toward the dangerous end. She’s certainly not “amusingly harmless.” Alas, expecting her to be magically cured of AIS is probably not in the cards.
This letter is intended as satire. My apologies to party clowns.
