06/07/2026
🚨 South Park Deserves Better Than Fear, Falsehoods, and Conspiracy Politics
In the May edition of The Park News, South Park Republican Committee Vice Chair Susan Lucot published a letter filled with conspiracy theories, factual errors, religious condemnation of political opponents, attacks on transgender children and families, and fear-based rhetoric about immigrants.
We believe South Park deserves honest debate — not QAnon-style “Great Awakening” language, not claims that neighbors are tools of the devil, and not political arguments built on falsehoods.
Our South Park Democratic Committee response was published in the June edition of The Park News, and we are sharing it here because residents deserve to know what kind of rhetoric is being promoted by local Republican leadership — and why it matters.
We also want to recognize three strong, thoughtful responses published in The Park News by J. Fink, Kathleen Hirt, and Linda Hedderman. Their letters helped show that many South Park residents are willing to speak up for truth, decency, and basic respect in our community.
We are sharing our committee’s response here on our public page, and images of the letters are in the comment section if you haven’t received the Park News.
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South Park Deserves Better Than Fear, Falsehoods, and Conspiracy Politics
Susan Lucot’s latest letter should concern everyone in South Park Township — Democrats, independents, and reasonable Republicans alike. Not because she supports Donald Trump or holds conservative views. That is her right, and many good people in our community do. The concern is that her letter abandoned honest political debate in favor of conspiracy theories, dehumanizing attacks, and factual errors that demand correction.
Let’s start with the facts Ms. Lucot got wrong.
She claimed that crossing the border unlawfully constitutes “a felony” under 8 U.S.C. § 1325. That is false. A first offense under that statute is generally a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine or up to six months imprisonment. She also claimed the Biden administration “lost over 300,000 children” who crossed our borders. That is a misleading political talking point. A DHS Inspector General report did identify serious tracking failures involving unaccompanied children — real problems deserving real attention — but that timeframe began during the Trump administration, and the blanket “missing children” claim strips away critical context.
Most glaringly, Ms. Lucot lists the USS Cole attack among Iran’s aggressions against America. The USS Cole bombing was a horrific terrorist attack that killed 17 American sailors. But it occurred in Aden, Yemen, and was carried out by al-Qaeda — not Iran. These are not obscure facts. They are part of the public historical record. If someone is going to invoke the deaths of American sailors to justify military action, the very least they can do is get the facts right.
On Iran more broadly: Ms. Lucot defended military action as though it deserves no scrutiny and no debate. But here is something worth remembering. Donald Trump campaigned explicitly on keeping America out of new foreign wars. He told voters he would put America First and stop spending American lives and treasure on foreign conflicts. Many people in South Park — including many who voted for Trump — took that promise seriously. If you are one of those voters and you are now watching another Middle East conflict unfold while your gas prices climb, your grocery bills rise, and your family budget gets squeezed tighter every month, you have every right to ask hard questions. That is not disloyalty to Trump. That is exactly what he promised you. Congress has a constitutional role in matters of war, and no president — Republican or Democrat — should be exempt from that accountability. Blind deference on questions of war and the economic pain that follows is not conservatism. It is something else entirely.
Ms. Lucot also repeatedly urges readers to “wake up” to hidden truths, warns that we have been “seduced by an engineered reality,” and closes by welcoming us to the “Great Awakening” — a reference with deep roots in QAnon mythology. This from the Vice Chair of the South Park Republican Committee, whose party has spent years mocking Democrats, teachers, librarians, and civil rights advocates for being “woke.” So which is it? Is being awake a virtue when it means believing in secret plots and shadowy enemies, but a liability when it means recognizing inequality or defending democracy? That is not a principled position. That is a double standard.
Ms. Lucot also invokes Mark Twain: “It is easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” She meant it as a jab at her critics. But read her letter again. That quote describes precisely the mechanics of conspiracy thinking — telling followers that all contrary evidence is part of the deception, that critics are either asleep or evil, and that only one movement sees the truth. Ms. Lucot, with respect, the Twain quote applies here — but not in the direction she intended.
Her attacks on transgender children and families were not serious policy arguments. Describing vulnerable kids as “depraved” and “demonic” is cruelty, not concern. Portraying immigrants as rapists and murderers inflames fear rather than addressing real policy questions that deserve real answers. And dismissing the three women who challenged her previous letters as filled with “hatred” and tools of the devil — while simultaneously offering to pray for them — is condescension, not civility.
No responsible Republican should feel obligated to defend any of this. You can support secure borders without calling your neighbors demonic. You can love your country without believing every institution is secretly evil. You can be skeptical of government without following a QAnon rabbit hole. And you can ask hard questions about a war in the Middle East and its cost to working families without being called a traitor or a tool of the devil.
Conspiracy theories do not fix roads, lower gas prices, improve schools, or keep us out of foreign wars. They do not lower your grocery bill or make your insurance premium more affordable. Honest leadership does.
South Park is a community of neighbors, not a battlefield of good and evil. We can disagree passionately about taxes, immigration, schools, and national politics without declaring our neighbors demonic, brainwashed, or tools of Satan. That is not strength. That is fear. And South Park deserves better than a local political leader who mistakes fear for courage, conspiracy for research, and cruelty for conviction. We simply ask for honesty, decency, and respect for the truth. That should not be a high bar.
South Park Democratic Committee
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Letters to the editor can be submitted to: [email protected]
South Park deserves better.
South Park deserves truth.
South Park deserves decency.
