Republicans, convict Trump and save your party

Now that Donald Trump is out of office, it is time to heal. The problem is the Republican Party wants to sweep everything under the rug. We really need two responsible parties at the table if our democracy is to work.

The truth is that this all began 12 years ago with the “birther” falsehood. From there, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell vowed two things: to do everything possible to make Barack Obama a one-term president and to pass none of his legislation. McConnell capped that off by refusing to even interview Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court for many months prior to an election, then approving Trump’s court pick in record time.

That’s when “cancel culture” really began, and it has culminated with an attempted coup of the government, aided by the likes of McConnell, Sen. Lindsey Graham, Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Jim Jordan, to name just a few.

Democrats have given Republicans a great gift. The impeachment and conviction of Trump offer them their only chance to regain their party. Make the GOP ‘Grand’ again. You cannot get rid of cancer by sweeping it under the rug.

John Farrell, DeKalb

Unity must be based on facts and logic

Much is being said and written now about the need to calm down, listen to each other and unite. I’m all for that, but such a prescription is applicable to differences in opinion. What we are dealing with are differences in reality.

There is only so far one can lean toward somebody who is determined to believe what he or she wants to believe, listens only to sources that reinforce that belief, and will reject facts and the opinions of people who have spent a lifetime trying to understand something if they do not support their beliefs.

The original Mr. Spock in Star Trek was my role model, so my tools are facts and logic. I can deal with and respect people who take the facts (possibly facts that I was unaware of) and, by applying different logic, reach a different conclusion than my own.

However, people who will agree on the validity of neither facts nor logic and are likely to simply say that facts that they don’t like are no good, appear to be unreachable to me. There must be a common frame of reference before bridge building can begin and both sides must pitch in on the construction.

Curt Fredrikson, Mokena