To the Editor:

As many people know by now, Potsdam Town Board Member Christine Paige commented on a Facebook post responding to the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. This began when someone posted a joke about the assassination attempt, to which another FB account responded, stating that Trump is a human being, and political violence is wrong. Paige responded to this commenter stating that she does not see him as a human, and perhaps there is something she wasn’t seeing that proved such – a sarcastic jest. Regardless, the latter section, “his assassination would be akin to putting down a rabid dog”, was drawn out of context. Paige wasn’t attempting to incite political violence here, but rather making a comment about Trump’s person.

Some believe that Christine Paige’s status as an elected official makes her comment professionally inappropriate. Yet, it was made on a personal account, and nowhere did she declare her status as an official, therefore she was not speaking on behalf of the people of Potsdam, just herself.

Moreover, Trump in no way has the moral high ground for he has publicly announced many controversial opinions and said many questionable things about other people, such as, but not limited to: comparing women to dogs, “grab her by the p*ssy” by way of making women conform to men’s will, and lastly, calling upon his fan base to storm the white house on January 6th - a former president effectively inciting violence because he was horribly afflicted by his loss in the 2020 election. The leaders of a country set the precedent, so if Trump has set that standard, and the people have allowed it, Paige’s comment is the least of anyone’s worries.

Considering all of this, I think it unfair to forcibly remove Christine Paige from the Town Board given that the subject of all this controversy is not himself without his faults – he just isn’t held accountable for them. Many Americans run to defend the topic of free speech, and yet so many people in St. Lawrence County have taken the hypocritical stance of trying to punish Paige for her opinion by ripping away her career. If the standard response is to repress and punish people for their opinions when they do not manifest into negative action against others, nor are they intended to – then there you have a budding dictatorship.

Marceline Barnes
sophomore at SUNY Potsdam