The huge division in our country is not just political; it has grown to be personal. We look with hate toward those whose beliefs, policies or color do not match our own. We are told those who differ from us threaten our freedom, jobs and our family.
We used to advocate for the underdog and pursue justice. We used to build bridges; now we build walls. After World War II, we displayed our moral convictions. We fed the poor, aided the downtrodden and welcomed those at the margins.
This year gave us the Big Beautiful Bill, which gave huge tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy while making health care unaffordable for millions of our fellow citizens. Our elected officials reject the moral obligation of helping those with too little, both here and around the world.
Our nation for most of its existence has accepted the human equality of all people along with the task to wipe away the suffering of fellow human beings. The hopes of the world once rested upon the United States. Today, we are adrift and divided. If our leaders will not stand by the principle that the rights of everyone are diminished when the rights of one person are threatened; we have a moral crisis, not just a failure of conscience.
Our 250th anniversary as a nation and a democracy will be celebrated in 2026. Let us return to seeking the well-being of others and defense of the persecuted.
Insist that our elected officials return America to a nation of caring compassion with a determination to end the suffering of our own people and those around the world.
Helping others does not make us suckers and losers; it just makes us good Americans again.
— Jerry Hanson, Elkhorn, Wisconsin
A new New Deal needed
Life in America has been deteriorating for generations. And we’re all a tad complicit.
Whether it boils down to consistently settling for stale establishment politicians — regardless of party lines — or allowing our social structure to further deteriorate, America’s cumulative environment presents a transparent picture.
Whatever happened to “America vs. The Establishment”? Whatever happened to the lot of us collectively understanding that leadership in America is at times inept? Or full well knowing that having a multitude of affluence creates a multitude of influence?
When one person generates an insidious amount of money, this leads to an abundantly ignorant worldview coupled with an ability to walk across the chessboard and steal the pieces in front of your face, change the rules, then proclaim themselves victorious.
The constitutional picture was never sustainable for one reason and one reason alone: lack of reform.
Without proper constitutional amendments for the betterment of the American people, I personally do not know exactly where this sinking ship is going to land. But I, like many of my fellow U.S. citizens, do not like the feeling we have in our gut on a daily basis.
At the end of the day, the solutions look similar to President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. You can even ask penitentiary inmates.
“If you could go back in time, what would prevent you from committing the crime that landed you in a situation that most would choose to abstain from?” The majority of answers would look the same: social programs, job training, affordable housing, health care/mental health support, trade school and college-level educational opportunities that do not unnecessarily put people into debt.
The solutions that benefit the collective whole are actually the way to prevent crime, increase innovation, create jobs, etc.
Without a new New Deal, our cratering democracy may actually not survive. But we’re smart enough to know how to demand better.
— Jordan Getty, Naperville
Make us sane again
2025 has been more than a bit exhausting. A year of empty promises, petty vengeance and rampant lies. A year of trampling on our Constitution. A year of presidential favors bestowed in exchange for ego feeding and personal enrichment. A year of divisiveness, hatred and chaos.
For 2026, let’s all consider making a New Year’s resolution to work to “Make America Sane Again.”
— David Haeckel, Chicago
Biden’s border failures
The Dec. 28 Tribune was largely dedicated to the effects of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol in Chicago (“64 days in Chicago: The story of Operation Midway Blitz, a mission unlike anything in recent American history”). There was little to no mention or acknowledgement of what the Joe Biden administration did to bring this upon us. That was four years of what we had not seen in our entire history! Millions of unvetted immigrants came into this country. A country without a border is not a country.
Perhaps what we are seeing now is the Donald Trump administration going too far, but the Biden administration and its “open door” policies is what brought our country to this point in time.
This could all have been avoided by simply enforcing our border policies to begin with.
— David Bohac, Willow Springs
Cmdr. Bovino’s ancestors
It would be interesting to if someone did an ancestry search on Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino. I have a feeling his ancestors didn’t come over on the Mayflower.
— Richard Schultz, Crete, Illinois
‘Animal Farm’ lessons
This month, we will be acknowledging the first full year of the second term of Donald Trump’s presidency. To avoid being classified as “woke,” teachers may find it difficult to explain the many changes that have happened in the U.S. during past 12 months without becoming too political. The solution to this dilemma is for English and/or social studies teachers to assign George Orwell’s book “Animal Farm.”
The students can read the book at their own pace and take any notes of what they find relevant. If any incident in the book reminds them of some current event, they can just independently research it and compare it with the newspaper account or the TV explanation of the event.
Then the actual assignment begins!
Students can align each animal group to today’s ethnic groups, class or political party they represent. What follows automatically is matching the names of the main animal leaders with today’s politicians whose actions mirror the actions on the farm.
After reviewing the farm’s seven commandments printed on the barn wall, students can examine the effects of the slight rewording of each commandment in the light of today’s reinterpretation of the Constitution.
What would follow is the shocking realization that the multiple “small adjustments” have distorted the animal farm’s original goals. The farm’s revised way of life differs drastically from its original intent (despite the animals’ hard work), mirroring the breakdown of social equality in the U.S. today.
The teacher need not intervene. Let tomorrow’s Americans consider their choices.
— Mary Ann McGinley, Wilmette
Override those vetoes
Recently, President Donald Trump vetoed two bills that Congress unanimously passed. The first bill addresses the financing of a drinking water project in Colorado, a state the president has previously vowed to punish. The second bill addresses flood control for land in the Everglades occupied by the Miccosukee Tribe, which is participating in a lawsuit against the Trump administration that seeks the closure of the infamous “Alligator Alcatraz” detention camp.
It is troubling that there is doubt that Congress will override the vetoes. The concern for retaliation is understandable; after all, we would not be in this position if the President did not retaliate.
But the decision not to override these vetoes would be dangerous. If they do not, either all members of Congress went derelict in their duty to represent what they believe is in the best interests of the American people and Trump was right to save the people from their mistake. Or the president has amassed enough power that he alone can cause more than a third of Congress to change their mind and cower in fear of his anger being redirected at them.
Our forefathers fought the American Revolution to get away from a tyrannical monarch and indifferent legislators, not to create our own homegrown version of it. Whichever explanation is true, it undermines the deliberate work of our Founders and the institutions that they worked hard to create.
There is only one solution: Congress must override the vetoes to maintain its own legitimacy. The continued success of our republic demands it.
— Jeremy Bell, Elk Grove Village
Resolving Russia’s war
I generally read Daniel DePetris’ and Elizabeth Shackleford’s foreign policy commentaries with interest, and I commend the Tribune for presenting them. Americans need to know more about what is happening in the world.
However, when I read DePetris’ column (“The foreign policy moves Donald Trump got right this year,” Dec. 30) crediting President Donald Trump for “pushing Ukraine and Russia into a diplomatic process to end the nearly four-year war,” I thought: Wait. What?
There is scant evidence that Trump has pushed Russia into anything. It does not refuse to open the door to Trump’s amateur envoys, but that is about as far as Russia (which, these days, is simply Vladimir Putin channeling Louis XIV’s apocryphal “I am the state” assertion) goes, and it only does that to lead Trump on and distract him from understanding that he is being played so he does not take more effective action.
Ask Ukrainian citizens — who are bombed nightly as Putin attempts to win through demoralization of the population what he is having difficulty winning on the battlefield — if their lives are better because of these pantomime negotiations.
Those U.S. Tomahawk missiles that appear to have been wasted on the wrong target in Nigeria would have done more good flying eastward from Ukraine. Persuading Putin that we will back Ukraine in a longer war than Russia’s puny economy can support is the nudge that he needs to start real negotiations.
— Curt Fredrikson, Mokena, Illinois
Trump’s patronage army
President Donald Trump is not just firing experienced government workers. He is selectively hiring supporters for a patronage army. Trump wants loyalists, not competence.
Trump’s patronage hires owe their livelihood to him. They will do anything to keep him happy.
Trump’s patronage loyalist knows that whenever needed, Trump can yank our attention away from economic numbers. Trump’s circus has many unused distractions: Rename the District of Columbia as D.T. (the District of Trump); invade Greenland, Venezuela or both; coordinate Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids on preschools; and impose tariffs on interstate trade. While citizens recover from Trump’s clown show, the patronage economist remains safe and stands ready to change the numbers whenever Trump honks.
Patronage, or the spoil system, had its American heyday between 1820 and 1883, when the Pendleton Act slowed it down. Patronage saturated the government with corruption and incompetence at that time and will continue to do so today if we let it.
At one time, Americans learned to base government hiring on merit, competence and experience, not loyalty to one person. Following Trump’s every dictate lacks merit, breeds incompetence and ignores experience.
— J. Michael Atherton, Dover, New Hampshire
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