The editorial board at The Salt Lake Tribune should rescind its endorsement of Rep. Mia Love immediately. Paul Huntsman, the owner of the newspaper and part of that staff, was naïve in his recent interview on the newspaper’s podcast, Trib Talk. He doesn’t see the clear and present danger we face today if Love is reelected to her post and that’s a problem.

This week we’ve heard President Trump say that he wants to end birth right citizenship with an executive order and that he wants to send 5,200 15,000 troops to the border in an attempt to gin up his base and get them high on fear –surely to drive them to the polls.

The red meat he’s throwing at them stinks of racism and is rotted with a deranged view of the country we live in and the constitution that gives it life. Love’s voting record and her party affiliation do not inspire any reassurance that she will stand for the constitution and value tax payer money if either or both of Trump’s wishes come true.

What Huntsman forgets is that the congress is essentially a loaded weapon that can cause a bloody trauma and every vote in Trump’s favor is another bullet in his clip –he must be disarmed. While I applaud the editorial board for throwing in with non-incumbents -one of which is a third party candidate-, supports all three initiatives, and is a no on two of the three amendments, Huntsman’s lukewarm endorsement of Love is a continuing approval of the status quo in Washington.

Love has voted 97.5% of the time with Trump. Yes, she has spoken out when she disagrees with the president but what good does that do anyone when she aligns herself with him with her vote at such a high rate? Is it not practical to say that the best way to stop a madman like Trump is to put in place checks and balances that will put an end to his carte blanche?

I understand that a newspaper moves the needle in the tiniest of bits, but the race in congressional district four is tight and Huntsman’s tepid support of Love isn’t an act of bringing more bipartisan voices to an unbalanced and ultra-partisan arena, its placing a two term congresswoman in festered soil where she will continue to learn a wicked trade –I mean, have you seen her attack ads?

We don’t need more arsonists in Washington.

If you’re on Love’s email distribution list as I am, it’s clear that she’s learned to harness the power of partisanship and the art of injecting wedge issues like a virus into her supporters. Her emails asking for money travel in Pelosi’isms, labeling her opponent as, “Liberal Mayor McAdams,” sowing division with her critique of his support on same sex marriage and access to abortion -all with the purpose of stoking fires.

So again, I ask, why is Huntsman supporting her? He said in his interview with Trib Talk that Love put’s party aside, that she can help in a bipartisan way, and that it, “takes a term or two or three,” to establish credibility. You and I have been paying an unhealthy amount of time focusing on this race, am I the only one who scoffed with a crooked eye of disbelief when the newspaper picked her?

Love’s behavior doesn’t match Huntsman’s reasoning and for that, a retraction is in order.

Ok enough about him. I’m going to ask you for two things, some of you aren’t going to like the first –too damn bad.

To all of you who took to cancelling your subscriptions to the paper, you should reactivate and come back. Yes, it’s unfortunate and in the opinion of this idiot blogger, short sighted to endorse someone like Love, but this is our local record keeper. If you cancelled or plan on cancelling, you yourself are being shortsighted about how important the paper is to our democracy.

We need to support the Trib because they provide accountability in government, they report on the serious and the silly, and without them, the lens of perspective is not just broken, it’s gone. I’ve seen the letters you send in to them be published, and because they exist, our voices are heard. Let’s not silence ourselves by defunding an institution like our local rag.

On to the second thing.

If you voted for McAdams, and you feel like I do about the endorsement and the overall race, then you need to go volunteer for his campaign. This Saturday his volunteers -including me- will be knocking on doors to get the vote out. Join us and help us. There’s only five days left in this election and talking to people can make all the difference, let’s retract the editorial board’s endorsement by pounding pavement.