Dear GOP: What happened to you? You were once the Grand Old Party, right? How’s that holding up? Not so grand anymore, it seems.
If you don’t mind, I’d like to offer an observation: The president is insane. I know it, the Democratic Party knows it, you folks formerly known as the Grand Old Party know it, the whole freaking world knows it.
May I suggest that you do something that might help you to regain your status as the Grand Old Party? Stand up to the president. It’s not all that difficult. Just do your jobs.
Tony Galati, Lemont
‘Ashamed of my reps in Congress’
To the Democratic leaders: You are the opposition party. Start opposing!
As a private citizen, I feel powerless to do anything to enact change. You hold the power of the legislature. At the moment, I am ashamed of my representatives in Congress. Grow a spine and start leading the opposition against this repressive federal executive branch.
Cristo Paraskevas, Park Ridge
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Pritzker, Johnson, Preckwinkle are on right side of history
Albert Einstein, who sought a new life in the United States in the 1930s as Hitler’s Nazi party took hold in Germany, said, “The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them.”
Donald Trump’s political brand has long been one of gleeful cruelty. Gov. JB Pritzker, Mayor Brandon Johnson and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle have promised to uphold Illinois’s and Chicago’s sanctuary laws, amid Trump’s mass deportations, meaning that our local authorities will not help federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement to identify immigrants who lack legal status.
For this, the Trump administration filed suit in federal court, claiming that these sanctuary policies are inflaming a “crisis” at the U.S. southern border.
The people who have put down roots here, who are good neighbors and friends, Trump likens to criminals keen to pillage and poison this country. His movement has mainstreamed the phrase “migrant crime,” meant to capitalize on his supporters’ worst, most xenophobic fears, and has appropriated an adjective used to describe undocumented migrants’ status as a slur. Trump’s words have painted migrants with a broad stroke and reduced the very real dysfunction of current immigration policy to a matter of criminals to be rounded up and disposed of.
If there are to be future generations with access to accurate recorded history, they will look back upon those who resisted cruel authoritarian policies as correct, and they will wonder how such brutality was permitted to happen at all.
It’s time to fight to be on the right side of history. Resisting the Trump authoritarian takeover is exhausting and demoralizing, but it needs to be done. I’m grateful to live in a city and state where our leadership heeds Einstein’s words and will not concede to dictatorial tactics. We need everyone to do the same.
Mara Divis, Streeterville
Trump reaps rewards while transgender athletes get sidelined
According to NCAA President Charlie Baker, there are “less than 10” transgender athletes among more than 530,000 athletes in the NCAA.
We also know our president committed sexual abuse, and at least one of his Cabinet members was accused of a sexual assault allegation and settled.
One of those two scenarios creates discomfort for people while the other involves a crime. The former group is prevented from playing a sport; the latter is allowed to continue with their job. Does that seem fair?
John Hankes, Streeterville