Democracy or fascism?
To the Editor:
Some people still believe that America is involved in a traditional Democratic/Republican political struggle.
That is an illusion. What we are actually doing is grinding out our future system of governing. The struggle is between a fledgling Democratic Republic and an emerging wave of fascism which is clearly led by Donald Trump.
The doors have been accidentally left open for this struggle by our original Constitutional framers. They wrote the original document with a couple of flaws that render our Republic very fragile. The first flaw was the assumption that those who would be elected president would instinctively protect and defend the Constitution. We are seeing in Donald Trump that that notion is simply not tenable. Trump is actually using the trust inherent in the Constitution to destroy the document’s principles on the way to a new form of government (fascism).
The second glaring weakness of the Constitution is the Supreme Court. Can you believe that it is a body of mere humans who are fallible who are appointed by politicians who have no written ethics to guide their behavior and maintain some faith by Americans that they weigh matters according to the Constitution? They are free to behave as they choose. We are now seeing those seeds produce bitter fruit.
In recent times, Congress enacted yet another dangerous flaw called Citizens United. It allows corporations and wealthy influencers to buy legislation that fits their interests, not that of the American people. Can someone find me a corporation in ancestry.com? No, you cannot. They are not people. This may be what Benjamin Franklin feared when he replied, “A republic if you can keep it.”
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Right now, it appears that fascism has the upper hand in the struggle. Democracy is in a choke hold. Can our form of government withstand the onslaught of Donald Trump and the fascist regime he espouses? Not until/unless we see the struggle as what it is. Then we must amend the Constitution to prevent breaches of trust that we are victimized by at this point in time.
The movement toward a “more perfect union” cannot be facilitated by abandoning our Democratic Republic and drifting into a fascist regime. Americans must choose to protect and defend the Constitution or risk losing our way of life.
Dave Waldrop
Webster
