Letters to the Editor: So your neighbor likes Donald Trump. Get over it

To the editor: I know Virginia Heffernan’s column about her Trump-supporting neighbors snowplowing her country home’s driveway without being asked was meant to be somewhat amusing, but something about it made me sad.

Did it ever occur to Heffernan that she may have been wrong? That the political beliefs she holds do more harm than good or at least not as much good as she thinks? That the people with whom she disagrees politically may not be bad individuals?

Maybe she should develop a little more insight and humanity. Not everything is politics, you know.

Ed Gala, Huntington Beach

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To the editor: Since Heffernan is privileged enough to have a rural “pandemic getaway,” she ought to try harder to think like a country mouse.

Rather than insult her neighbor’s kindness by comparing it to mafia behavior and expressing grudging, limited gratitude, she should consider that in the country, helping your neighbors is not merely a courtesy extended to one’s own tribe, it is a survival tactic.

Country folks often live far from hospitals and fire departments, and an unplowed driveway is not just an inconvenience — if you had a heart attack, it might be a death sentence. And if a Black or Latino family had moved in next door, my guess is that Heffernan’s neighbor would have plowed for them too.

The neighbor probably doesn’t expect or want Heffernan’s thank-you cookies. But if he needed her help, I think he’d expect that.

Kathleen Barreto, Culver City