A letter written to the late Senator Orrin Hatch by someone named after him

I once hand-delivered this to Orrin Hatch’s office in 2017:

Senator Hatch,

My name is Orrin Konheim and 33 years ago, my parents named me after you. My mom is an Israeli immigrant, who went on to have a distinguished career in the Pentagon at the Senior Executive Staff level, wanted to name me the traditional Israeli derivation “Oren” but opted differently after liking the way your name was spelled.

As the son of Washingtonians who were proud civil servants of the executive branch for a combined 70+ years, I grew up with a reverence for public service work and the people high up in government. I grew up thinking it was cool that I was named after a senator. My father once recommended I wrote you a letter when I was about ten years old and I asked about you.

I would not describe myself as a political wonk or someone who’s particularly political active (I did get involved with the Katrina clean-up effort after I graduated working in two different sites in Louisiana in service to the hurricane victims) outside of voting.

In the past couple years, however, I have become politically aware after seeing a disturbing polarization among my acquaintances (on the internet and real life). By and large, Americans are more eager than ever to discount the facts others with different opinions, they are eager to demonize anyone who disagrees with them, and they are more dogmatic than ever in my…