From Kevin M. Kuehl

Monroe

To the editor:

First, I would like to thank the publisher of this paper for insisting, in his letter of a week or so ago, on decorum in his publication. I noted while Mr. Johnson chastised the rhetoric on both sides of the political aisle, his letter came out after a particularly nasty, and largely fact free, tirade from the conservative side. I also saw that Chief Justice Roberts had to admonish the presenters in the impeachment trial of the President to use more decorum in their addresses to the Senate. I noticed that although he included the Democratic managers in his admonition, it wasn’t until after a very mean-spirited Republican response that the Chief Justice gave his reprimand.

Now I read what Mr. Johnson thinks of some of qualities of the President Trump and his opinion of the whole impeachment thing. While I disagree with much of his assessment, at least he is not a total apologist for the President, like nearly all elected Republicans seem to be. No, the impeachment is not just a political game by Democrats, that is a Republican talking point. If as you say, you follow politics at all, you know how House Speaker Pelosi resisted impeachment until the infamous call to Ukraine was made public. Trump really crossed a line. This impeachment and trial is a matter of greatest importance for our democracy.

But, this is just how it goes nowadays. If you’ve paid the least bit attention to the state of our politics over the last four decades, you know that the Republican Party and its biggest supporters have been ramping up the negativity and meanness all this time. The Democrats and their supporters, in response, can get a bit testy, and then the Republicans and supporters return fire, in two ways. If in positions of responsibility, they may nicely point out that the polite rhetoric and bipartisanship of old is sadly gone, and both sides are to blame, in a hopeful and generally successful attempt to make most of the American people disgusted at all politics and politicians. If part of the conservative base or right wing noise machine, they just ramp up the negativity and meanness another notch. Do we believe those who got us to this point, and a President who has lied over 15,000 times and counting, and his apologists, or those with a bit more decorum?