This is an update to the story about the woman who wrote a letter to the editor explaining how triggered she was to see a man wearing a Trump 2020 teeshirt in Trader Joes. She said the cashier also was so triggered she had to check the pulse in her neck, that’s how panicked she was to see a “TRUMP TERRORIST” in the store. (Original post HERE)
If you think Cheryl Boyles is curled up in a corner somewhere sucking her thumb, think again.
“I don’t internalize it or personalize it in any way,” she told me. “They don’t know me.”
Boyles is the Green Valley woman whose letter to the editor last Sunday launched an avalanche of criticism. And since this is the opinion page, I guess I can say it: She deserved every word of it.
I told her as much when we talked after Wednesday’s paper came out. We printed 24 letters to the editor, all destroying her overwrought description of a visit to Trader Joe’s in Tucson where she was reduced to, well, snowflake status by the sight of a man in a Trump 2020 T-shirt.
Boyles told me she writes screenplays for a living but this wasn’t one of them. This was the real deal, she said.
“He had a whole look about him and an air about him. It was way more than a shirt… it felt different,” she said. (No more letters, please — we’ve piled on enough.)
I received about 50 letters (and they’re still arriving), lots of phone calls and a few personal visits — including one really rude man who called me a “can’t-use-the-word-in-a-family-newspaper-but-it-starts-with-an-F liberal” before stomping out the door. For shame…
I told Cheryl I printed nothing in support of her position because I received nothing. Zero.
The good news was that only two people canceled their subscriptions because we printed Cheryl’s letter, and we gained one new subscriber: Cheryl Boyles. (I kid you not.)
Why did I publish her letter? We fact-check facts, we don’t fact-check experiences. She had as much right to share her experience as anybody. I had no right to dismiss it or to tell her how to feel.
But, sure, I knew she’d get blown out of the water. Green Valley has a way of taking care of these things and I had no desire to rescue Cheryl from herself.
Lots of lessons here.
•President Trump has fans in Green Valley. A lot of them. I bet they vote, too. Democrats shouldn’t underestimate this fact like they did in 2016. He’s popular nationwide, and for lots of reasons.
•The lack of support for Cheryl’s position shows the left does a lot more thinking than the right gives it credit for. They knew her letter was indefensible and didn’t represent their views. I’d guess that many concluded it was exaggerated, too.
•Cheryl’s hand-wringing was a big laugh for a lot of us. It was, hands-down, the oddest letter to the editor I’ve seen in my 30-plus years in newspapering. Unfortunately, her letter detracted from the fact that sometimes our president can be scary. No, his fans aren’t terrorists (bad move, Cheryl) and a T-shirt shouldn’t set off anybody like that.
ht/ jd hasty
http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3s8x0v
I see I’m going to have to include Trump T-shirts in my inventory.
This lady should not go out in public. Only met 1 other person as crazy in GV. He was a commie from Portland who loved Obama and socialism. Dumb shit had plans for 2 weeks in Cuba when wife diagnosed with cancer. After years of telling everyone how great Cuban medicine is he cancelled their vacation and went back to Portland for treatment!
Of course, the editor should have printed the letter, and not just for comedic value. Even crackpots should be heard and then given the proper scorn and ridicule it deserves.
But I disagree with this baseless assumption;
“The lack of support for Cheryl’s position shows the left does a lot more thinking than the right gives it credit for.”
Where’s the evidence of that? I suspect there are many TDS sufferers that feel equally triggered when presented with evidence that others might not share in the same delusion. Some would feel the impulse to punch the Trump supporter, some would call him a Nazi or a fascist, and even some would deny him services rendered, not allowing him to order a meal or secure a purchase. Sure, most would not go full-blown pussy and whine to the store manager but they all share the same derision and hatred, “You could just smell the Trump support”.
I sent her a message on Facebook.
Lib’s like her are what’s wrong with America. Parasites all.
They live free with constitutional rights BECAUSE of the sacrifices of God fearing, proud, patriotic Americans.
I think it was a hoax.
Another stupid leftist bint…..
Ah yes, that Cheryl Boyles is one gutsy, brave social justice warrior, in the tradition of Joan of Arc! Hahahaha
Shouldn’t I be offended, frightened even, that Cheryl used the word ‘triggered’?
Doesn’t it suggest violence and aggression? Triggering a need to find a safe place. /s
They say we should not “normalize” Trump. But what has happened is that we’ve normalized mental illness.
@Blink ~ pretty sure, in this instance she’s bragging about getting laid by Roy Roger’s horse
They live in a fantasy world of make-believe
0% of her article is true. No one swooned or had to check their pulse.
Had it exaggerated any longer, she would have needed an ambulance to the hospital no doubt.
WHITE PRIVILEGE ON DISPLAY AT TRADER JOES.
That’s the worst thing she has to worry about in her life. Another white person wearing a red t shirt.
She should be worrying about her cuck husband who did nothing to ease his insane wifes meltdown in public.
Bet they went home to watch MASH reruns on betamax.
Sometimes I wonder if wearing my Navy hat when I shop at Traders Joe’s will trigger some leftist moron. so far it hasn’t. Molon Aabe getting laid by Trigger just might be a thing in Wash. state just might be a thing if you know what I mean. It would climb to the top of the charts as number 1 with a Bullet.
Wow… are there REALLY people THAT chickenshit, after the age of… seven… thereabouts? 🤨
I keep tellin’ you guys, these silly people aren’t saying their “triggered.” They’re saying they *are* Trigger — Roy Roger’s horse.
I dunno’ Bob. All I know about Tucson is that’s where I go to buy classic vehicles that the owners have no idea of their actual worth.
Well, I’m triggered by her pussy hat and the O2 wasted on her.
Lowell it was no hoax.
Go and read the full rebuttal and then the comments.
They are brutal, just like here.
The newspaper man is no P.Trump supporter, just someone who believes in free speech.
If it was a hoax we need more like them because it brings the P.Trump supporters out of the woodwork,and that is a good thing.
We need more reporters like him just tell the truth,good or bad we can take it.
Quick, somebody send them an emotional support pony.
Named ‘Trigger’, of course.
Hoax