The United States needs a new name. We are anything but United States. Politics have become such big business, and we should add such “ugly” big business that the idea that we are united is a sad, sad joke.

Never before has it been any worse than the pitiful displays of both parties this week as we look back on Jan. 6, 2021. The events of that day were shocking. They were awful. They were disgusting. And there was also an attack on the Capitol that day. We aren’t going to try and change any one’s mind about whether an election was stolen. We aren’t going to argue the point of whether the previous president tried to incite a riot, and we aren’t going to suggest the Steelers defense could have done better at stopping the villains or the patriots whichever you saw entering the Capitol that day.

We instead want to ask the question: How do we reconcile our differences? There is no acceptable explanation for the events of Jan. 6, 2021. And there is no defense for the rhetoric from politicians or national media on that day. We did not see one report that wasn’t slanted in favor of the writer’s political position. We did not see one comment or quote from an elected official that wasn’t politically slanted either.

In fact, we listened to prayers that were spoken, not prayed, in fact one was horribly plagiarized from an old hymn while leaving the impression for non-churched people that it was the minister’s own words.

Former President Trump’s brief tweet was rude and inappropriate. President Biden’s were just as bad, and he had a full 365 days to prepare remarks that could have been consoling, if not healing, in their nature but instead were sorrowfully just political nonsense pointing blame and with no effort to help anyone or anything.

One thing becoming more clear is that before the election of 2024, new names that are completely unassociated with the 2020 tickets need to appear on the ballot. The existing party leaders all need to move on to their life’s work although government paid positions are all that most of them know anything about. The old saying that “we do have term limits; the people can vote us out” just doesn’t work.

Elections are now party versus party without regard to whose name appears on the ballot, regardless of the credentials they boast or the lies disguised as promises they bring. The toughest decision on Thursday night was whether to laugh or cry at the behavior and comments of the talking heads on CNN and FOX. You may have noticed the coverage on those stations is slightly slanted. FOX tried to pretend nothing ever happened, and CNN distorted things more than Forrest Gump’s script writers did in their version of history in that movie.

As members of the media, we have reached a position of disgust and anger at how twisted political positions are within the media. We take our lumps from both sides pretty equally. We beat up each other within the walls of our own newspaper because of our own human failures in trying to be as equal as we can while others are displaying their clear and undisputed bias on the silly little social media pages on which they embarrass themselves with their trash talk.

United States? We need to start with united community. The hate pages mostly used for political positioning need to be recognized for what they are, and the public needs to continue to direct the trash spewing forth that serves no purpose but to divide people further. Then each organization, as the natural progression of combining organizations takes place, the new leaders need to remember we are supposed to be citizens of one community, one state, one country. What kind of a place are we leaving the next generation? We get to decide that by how we react to history, not by how we twist it. Happy New Year and God Save America.

— RV