To the editor: The brouhaha over the Katie Porter interview is fueled by false, social media-driven memes that try to say she lacks the qualifications to serve as governor (“‘I don’t want this all on camera,’ gubernatorial hopeful Katie Porter says in testy interview,” Oct. 8). The interviewer apparently expected her to calmly recite bland bromides. When she refused, elements of the Democratic establishment and her Republican haters quickly denounced Porter and attempted to discredit her candidacy.
California Democrats, don’t buy it. Today’s politics call for energetic defiance and a governor capable of countering the autocratic policies of President Trump. The vitality of international trade, a cornerstone of our economy, needs to be restored. Labor markets and flows, disrupted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and immigration restriction, require stabilization. And Porter’s record makes her ideally suited to take on one of our most pressing problems: housing availability and affordability.
In times like these, we need a person of conviction and democratic principle willing to confront the reactionary extremism of Trump and his minions. For a number of important reasons, Katie Porter fits the bill.
William Billingsley, Laguna Hills