Why many citizens don't trust government
In a recent letter to the editor, the writer wonders how other letter writers can come to conclusions so different than he did. As someone who twice voted for Mr. Trump, I'll try to explain.
Unfortunately politics has become personal. According to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden I'm a deplorable, bitter, clinging semi-fascist threat to our democracy. The rhetoric is meant to divide rather than unite. They would rather pander to their base and insult me than convince me that they have better ideas.
I am skeptical of what government officials say. The Gulf of Tonkin incident didn't happen as we were initially told it did. Saddam Hussein didn't have WMDs. You couldn't always keep your doctor even though you liked them. The toll booths won't come down, because the road will never, ever be paid for. Hunter Biden's laptop wasn't Russian disinformation. So pardon me if I don't believe everything I've been told concerning COVID, climate change, Ukraine or anything else. It's been too many lies over too many years.
The losers of the last two presidential elections claimed that it was stolen from them. Hillary Clinton gets the Mueller investigation while Donald Trump is told that he is a liar and a threat to our democracy. I believe that more people have gone to jail for crimes committed on Jan. 6 than those who committed crimes during the summer of 2020 riots. You know the politics of both.
I used to trust the media to be the umpire in our country's political disputes. I believed that they called balls and strikes fairly. Not anymore. Unfortunately the strike zone is different for Democrats and Republicans. Donald Trump is no saint, but neither is Joe Biden. Donald Trump faces indictment after indictment, while the evidence against Joe Biden is dismissed. I believe that the political divide in this country can be narrowed considerably if both sides were treated the same by all of the media.
While I speak only for myself I am willing to bet that almost half of the country agrees with me. To those who don't agree, prove me wrong instead of calling me names. It would be a nice change of pace.
John Malec
Bensenville