Give Diversity a Chance: Debate a Republican

To the Editor,
On Saturday, May 9th, Gloucester City Hall — a glorious monument of American civic architecture and the pride of our city — was defiled by a tantrum of vilification in a display of unhinged rhetoric by a Harvard professor, one Dr. Steve Levitsky, whose incendiary oration was sponsored by the Gloucester Lyceum and the Sawyer Free Library.  The professor began his hour-long speech, more a tent-revival sermon than an academic lecture, by asking the moderator, Ms. Callie Crosley of WGBH, if he were allowed to curse – an odd request. Is he in the habit of using profanity to browbeat his captive audience of students?  Although permission was not granted, his hysterical invective was no less profane for its malicious and prejudicial attacks on republicans, Trump voters, Christians and white people – a tirade which amounted to nothing less than group defamation.
Sitting on the dais was rabbi Steven A. Lewis from Gloucester’s Temple Ahavat Achim.  Our new mayor, Paul Lundberg, was also in the audience. I cannot imagine that the rabbi, or the mayor, was in agreement with the professor’s aggressive and odious rhetoric against “white people” and “Christians.”
Levitsky’s thesis is that “our democracy” has been stolen by none other than the President of the United States, along with 77 million accomplices, who happen to be the majority of voters in this nation.  Regardless of this fact, Levitsky painted us with a broad brush as racists, fascists, and lickspittle authoritarians, while democrats were presented as stalwart defenders of democracy and blameless moral agents amid a sea of bigotry and evil.  According to this divisive theory, whatever the Trump administration does is deemed “authoritarian,” whereas when democrats do exactly the same things, it is called, “our democracy.”
I asked the professor two questions. First, does he think this forum was fair to those who disagree with him, particularly republicans?  Second, would he commit here and now to a debate, and if we cannot find someone of equal academic stature, I said I would be willing to do it myself.  He immediately accepted my challenge.
Before I could return to my seat, he asked me what was so unfair about the forum? I pointed out the obvious to him: there was no chance for rebuttal or for presenting any alternative view.  It was in short highly partisan and clearly unfair to those whom he excoriated.
This event tarnished the reputation and good name of the Gloucester Lyceum, the Sawyer Free Library, Mayor Lundberg, and the Gloucester City Government.  I here call upon them all to right this wrong and host a similarly well-publicized forum to allow a chance for rebuttal and a different point of view to be heard.  Dr. Levitsky stands ready to debate and so do I. Give diversity a chance, and fairness too.
William Lewis Falsetano
Gloucester Republican Committee