LETTER: Cheney, Kinzinger buck party to seek truth

To the editor:

We are all aware of the impact of rolling power outages on our lives and our way of life. However, a different type of outage is now plaguing our society — rolling civic outages. Our country, state and locality are so polarized that friendships are being destroyed and family relationships are being damaged.

Viewing the initial session of the Jan. 6 select committee have brought these thoughts to the forefront. Even though I am not a Republican, I am proud to call Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger patriotic Americans. For all practical purposes, they are sacrificing their political lives at the altar of our republican democracy rather than bending their knee at the altar of Donald Trump. In the case of Kinzinger, much of his family has disowned him. Both Cheney and Kinzinger are facing death threats.

Adam Kinzinger is former active military and is a reservist on call. He refers to himself as a conservative Republican. As such, I have disagreed with him on many social, cultural and economic issues. Nevertheless, I deeply admire his ongoing display of courage.

The bulk of the Republican Party has succumbed to the cult of personality embodied in Donald Trump. This is despite the fact that he — along with Hitler, Stalin and Mao — is one of the four most evil men of the past century. Most Republican officials on the national level are acting out the Machiavellian principle that to succeed in politics requires learning how “not to be good.” Trump’s base has essentially adopted him as their secular savior. By doing so, they relinquish their right to claim Jesus as their spiritual savior.

What happened on Jan. 6 needs to be permanently etched in our collective conscience. We cannot live in the alternative reality that the terrorists of that day were really patriots.

For all you “people of faith” out there who believe in a place or concept of heaven, I know this to be true. You and I will not occupy the same eternal space. I would not be too sure that you will be the one that metaphorically will be looking down on me.

Ken Kroenke, Shawano