LETTER: Admit it, Grothman: Trump is cause of plague of incivility

To Ozaukee Press:
    This is to Rep. Glenn Grothman:
     It is said that the human responses of laughter and tears are very close together. After reading your online newsletter and listening to your video, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry regarding your signing of the “Commitment to Civility.”
    You cite refusals of one party or another to attend the opposing party’s Christmas events as examples of past incivility, but this is hardly a valid example of the level of incivility we need to address. And you refer to recent comments made by a California congressperson as the catalyst to stop incivility before it gets out of hand.
    Out of hand? It’s already way out of hand! What were glaringly absent in your remarks were examples of true incivility, hatred and intolerance, which have escalated beyond anyone’s imagination since the 2016 campaign when your then-candidate and now-president displayed, and continues unapologetically to display, incomprehensible incivility and bullying behavior by denigrating groups of people because of race or creed, disparaging national heroes, mocking those with special needs, disabilities or illnesses and encouraging others to do the same.
     I implore you to call upon any wisdom you can find in your brain, any compassion you can find in your heart, any strength you can find in your spine, and any honesty you can find in your soul to realistically face this truth: Trump is the root cause of the level of incivility we are now experiencing.
    And I further call upon you, if you are really serious about this commitment, to get him to sign his name on this document, see that he follows through on it and call him on it publicly if he does not.
    Only then will I stop laughing at the useless ludicrousness of this whole sham of a commitment, only then will I stop crying in despair at the level of incivility he has brought about this great nation, and only then will I once again be able to be proud of our leadership and hopeful for America.
     I eagerly await the news that you have had the courage to take this step.
Diane L. Roidt
Grafton