Do words with accepted meanings still hold those meanings, even in the age of Donald Trump? The Cambridge, Oxford, Collins, Merriam-Webster, Wikipedia and virtually every standard dictionary describes the Holocaust in nearly identical language, as “the systematic murder of many people, especially Jews, by the Nazis during World War II.”

Our country is a work in progress. But that has always been the case with America. In the 1800s, abolitionist Wendell Phillips said there is no guarantee, absent the watchfulness, hard work and insistence of a thoughtful people, that our experiment in freedom and self-government will continue successfully.

As my 16 years in the U.S. Congress have now ended, completing a total of 25 years in elected office, I have been reflecting on how grateful I am for those years of public service. In 1982, as a 29-year-old lawyer, wanting very much to help lead my hometown of Englewood in its renaissance, I ran for and was elected twice as Mayor. Those years were truly a labor of love. Working with my neighbors, we were able to fix many things and help set Englewood on its path to renewal.