To the editor,

All of us have at some time in our lives felt the stomach churning feeling of terror. Perhaps it was the bully at school, or a violent partner, or a near death experience in a car crash. In that moment, we feel helpless and alone.
The feeling of trust is the opposite. It could be your child or partner taking your hand, the attention of your dog in the morning or your cat on your lap.
In 1992, six months after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, I had a chance to work with small scale farmers and business people in the small Baltic country of Latvia. After 50 years of a government of terror (disappearances, torture) by the Soviets, there was no trust. When walking the streets of their town, there was not a word spoken, for fear of being overheard saying the wrong thing by an informant. They did not respond when we said “Good Morning” to them in Latvian. They had been so traumatized that there was no trust, only terror.
The Supreme Court election on April 1 offers us the choice of promoting Terror or Trust in our state. Brad Schimel, backed by millions of dollars from the Dodgy Elon Musk and his ilk, seems to me to promote terror as an organizing principle of society. (A recent new article indicated that he was proud that he “interrogated” his daughter as a hostile witness when they had a disagreement).
Terror that a women feels when she has a life threatening pregnancy and does not have legal control of her body to get medical care to save her life.
The terror of a parent losing their job because a court votes with the interests of the billionaire when workers try to form a union to get better pay.
The terror of a child who has not enough food or a place to live.
The terror that a return to a gerrymandered voting will once again make 20-30 percent of our votes in state elections not count.
Terror does not make for a healthy society.
Judge Susan Crawford offers trust in the process of dialogue and trust in our fellow citizens' capacity to discuss and decide how to run our state in the tradition of our democratic republic.

Prescott Bergh

Four Winds Farm

River Falls