My messages to our new representative

For the past four years, our Congressional representative has been the awesome Katie Porter. But thanks to redistricting, we now have Republican Young Kim, who was reelected to another term. Fine. Not my choice, but fine.

She is considered politically centrist, and she has been recognized for her bipartisanship. She voted to certify Joe Biden’s presidential election and to strip Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee assignments. However, she votes with her party on their awful positions on LGBTQ+ rights, women’s reproductive care, and any financial support for average Americans. But the fact she is a Republican in the House brings the rabid Trump-worshipping fringes of her party closer to destroying our democracy. I know people tire of the comparisons with what happened in a certain central European country 90 years ago, but we cannot ignore the parallels. Conservatives back then thought they could keep those violent extremists in check, or they would moderate themselves if they got into power. We all know what happened.

My first message to Representative Kim is that I don’t want to be unsafe in my own country. Most Americans feel the same way. That’s why we voted against election deniers and White Christian nationalists, even though a number of them got through. It’s also why your party didn’t get that “red tsunami” you expected. We need a healthy…