In response to Jonathan Tobin’s article “America Needs Healing” (January 14, 2021), I couldn’t agree more. We are a broken, divided society that is witnessing an attack on our democracy. However, Mr. Tobin seems to equate holding Donald Trump accountable for his actions with vindictive score settling. He raises the concern that pursuing Senate conviction will keep us mired in conflict and division and block us from being able to “move on.”

While the exit of Trump from the White House will likely bring a collective sigh of relief from the majority of Americans, the mess that he has left behind will take years, if not decades, to clean up. If the Senate decides not to try Trump, the venomous insurgents he unleashed will not slip away into the night.

Let’s be clear: An unprecedented, heinous crime was committed by our commander in chief that began with behaviors he exhibited before anyone cast their votes in 2016. He nurtured and encouraged extremists on the right; he legitimized and emboldened them for four years from the Oval Office. And finally, leading into January 6th (in the words of Rep. Liz Cheney), “he summoned this mob, he assembled this mob, and he lit the flame of this attack.”

Holding Trump accountable for inciting an attack on a coequal branch of government is not partisan warfare. It is the exacting of justice, plain and simple. And it is the responsibility of Congress (not Biden) to do just that. Would you ask the family of a murder victim not to prosecute the perpetrator because it might further anger him and his supporters? Have we not learned the dangers of appeasement?

The road to healing will not be blocked by speaking truth to power. On the contrary, it begins with truth. Trump’s base will never accept the truth until he conveys to them that he lied about the election being stolen, that he never had any evidence, and even planted the seeds of mistrust before a single vote was cast. It’ll never happen, but let’s at least be honest with each other, because as human beings and as Jews, we are a family that needs to find our way back to one another.