This is in response to my fellow Soudan resident who apparently thinks we’re too panicky regarding the impending demise of our democracy (“America’s democratic decline can’t be pinned on one man”, Apr. 3 issue of the Timberjay).
The watchdog organizations mentioned – V Dem, Freedom House, Bright Line Watch, and the Economic Intelligence Unit – HAVE noted substantial declines in democratic indicators over the past year, but those ratings are hardly based on subjective assessments. To the contrary, there’s been a fairly universal consensus on the dangers we’re facing, and who’s responsible for them.
The guardrails mentioned are barely intact – the courts HAVE routinely ruled against this administration, and Trump has routinely ignored those rulings – and has been allowed to get away with it. As for peaceful transfers of power, Jan. 6, 2021, wasn’t just ‘a very rare occurrence’, it was the ONLY such occurrence in our history at a national level (unless you consider the Civil War) – and was perpetrated by the very man currently gracing (or disgracing) the Oval Office!
Anyone who still believes that what we’re seeing is not authoritarian in nature, is just ‘business-as-usual,” or the normal give-and-take of partisan politics, is living in a dream world. The truth is there’s never been ANYTHING like this, not on the American scene.
The dangers of the current situation, with this man, and this administration, cannot be overstated. This is not just “a messy functioning democracy” – this is a full blown constitutional crisis, which will not improve until either Congress wakes up and exerts its constitutional authority, or the mid-terms throw the cowardly ones out of office (assuming the people behind Trump don’t figure a way to either cancel the elections, or pervert the results).
And speaking of those behind Trump, I don’t recall Stephen Miller or any of the others who have Trump’s ear ever going through an election process – and yet, these are clearly the folks calling the shots. Does anyone with half a brain really think an ignoramus like Trump could plausibly come up with any of this? The ‘public trust’ couldn’t possibly be eroded any more than it already has been, and every public pronouncement from this man just makes it worse. We are in deep doo-doo, and anyone who can’t, or won’t, see it either hasn’t been paying attention, or is guilty of willful ignorance.
Lynn Scott
Soudan