To the editor:

Last week's Phoenix contained two letters to the editor from individuals extolling the virtues of the Republican party and encouraging Democrats such as myself to join the Bristol Young Republicans, the Bristol Republican Town Committee and the Bristol County Concerned Citizens, and while I appreciate the invitation to join these groups, I find it difficult to accept these invitations due to a number of reasons.

First, I'm a lifelong Bristolian and lifelong Liberal Progressive Democrat, and I'm proud to state that from the time I registered to vote in 1978, I have never cast a vote for a Republican. Secondly, I retired from my job 22 years ago and since that day I've had the financial means and freedom to live anywhere in the country, but I choose to reside in Rhode Island for one reason only, and that is the overwhelming majority of Democrats who comprise Rhode Island's elected leaders at the state and federal level. Additionally, I choose to live in a state where my fellow Democrat elected leaders share my beliefs, such as a woman's right to safe, legal, and readily accessible access to abortion, equal rights for persons of color, the undocumented, and members of the LGBTQ community, fair treatment of unionized workers, progressive DEI policies, and common sense gun control laws.

So while I appreciate the invitation to join the groups who I consider to epitomize the right wing, Trump worshipping, anti immigrant, anti union, and anti gay agenda, I'm going to have to give them a hard no on their invitation, and suggest that their political and social ideologies might be more welcome in some Republican leaning state where they stand a better chance of finding other like minded individuals who they can attempt to indoctrinate into the Republican party.

I would also like to offer a final word of advice to those individuals who graciously invited me to join the Republican party, and that is the fact that Democrats have overwhelmingly dominated the Rhode Island political landscape for well over 60 years, while Republicans have remained largely irrelevant, and I have all the confidence in the world that the dominance by the Democrats in this state will not be changing any time in the near future.

Mike Proto
245 Chestnut St.