(Todd A. Smith)
Our commander-in-chief said it correctly.
Democracy is in danger thanks to the MAGA wing of the Republican Party.
In a primetime speech last week, President Joe Biden warned, “But as I stand here tonight, equality and democracy are under assault. We do ourselves no favor to pretend otherwise.”
Say what you want about President Biden and his war of words with many MAGA Republicans.
The speech was political.
The speech was unpresidential.
That maybe so.
But was his speech untruthful?
Absolutely not.
From the beginning of former President Donald Trump’s ascendancy to the White House, it was obvious that he disdained democracy and favored autocracy.
More specifically, he preferred autocracy if he was the autocrat or dictator
That is why he praised dictators like Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un.
He fancied himself as a strong man who made the country, and the world, bend towards his will.
Throughout his tumultuous four years in office, I had discussions with Republican acquaintances who believed that Trump loved America and that his tough love was just him telling the truth about the state of the country.
But anyone with common sense could tell that he never loved the country.
He only loved himself.
Anyone who would threaten the very foundation that this country rests on for their own personal gain, does not love this country.
A person like that hates this country.
That is why that person tried to overthrow the very thing that made America great in the first place, our beloved democracy.
Elections are just that, elections.
Politics is just that too, politics.
Therefore, each party has its day in the sunshine.
And each party has its days of storms.
Regardless of how elections turn out, the person with the most votes (popular or electoral) should take or remain in office.
Trump tried to do away with that reality just because his feelings got hurt because Biden beat him, bigly to the tune of approximately seven million votes.
But instead of making a concession speech, as painful as it might be to do so, Trump unleashed his unhinged cult followers and motivated them via his rhetoric to violently overthrow our democracy and reinstate Trump as king (not president).
He did not care about the dozens of court cases that he lost when he claimed widespread voter fraud caused the election to be “stolen” from him.
He did not care that politicians like Gov. Brian Kemp (R-Ga.) could not just find him enough votes to win the “Peach State.”
He did not care those states already had their own electors.
He did not care if the Big Lie led to the deaths of his followers or law enforcement officials.
He only cared about himself, his fragile ego and his pathetic thirst for power and dominance over everyone not named, Donald John Trump, Sr.
Those attributes and sins make him uniquely unqualified to ever be leader of the free world again.
Those attributes make him un-American, unpatriotic, treasonous and criminal.
Trump’s day will come when he must atone for his sins.
But until that time, the consequences for his transgression should come at the ballot box in 2022 and 2024.
America’s democracy is on the ballot in 2022 and possibly in 2024.
Although Trump is not on the ballot again in 2022, his message of making America hate again is on the ballot.
Racism is on the ballot, disguised as removing critical race theory from classrooms.
Free and fair elections are the ballot as many election deniers have a chance to win offices that could give them influence over free elections.
The fate of the Republican Party is also on the ballot.
Although I vote Democrat more than I vote Republican, America needs at least two viable political parties to keep this democracy thing going.
One party dominating over the other is not good for democracy.
Our way of governing benefits when one party knows if they do not produce, Americans will vote them out of office and replace them with their political opponents.
With Trump’s MAGA wing running roughshod over the GOP, the party will suffer in the long and short term because I would like to believe that most Americans favor the freedoms afforded to them in a democratic republic as opposed to the restrictions that would come if Americans lost their democracy and therefore their freedoms.
So, while conservative media outlets blast Biden for allegedly reneging on his promise to unite the country, those same outlets must recognize the real culprit or culprits.
One of the definitions of unity is to agree.
How is it Biden’s fault that the country is not in agreement when the thing that people cannot agree on is all due to Trump’s Big Lie and the fact that his followers are not smart enough to know that their lord and savior “45” lies for a living?
The courts could not get them to agree that Trump lost the election.
The real journalists could not get them to agree that Trump lost the election.
Trump’s cabinet could not get them to agree that their former boss loss the election.
The Cyber Ninjas could not get them to agree that Trump lost the election.
And they want to put the responsibility on Biden to get MAGA Republicans to agree that the election was not stolen due to widespread voter fraud.
Those problems of disunity were caused by Trump failing, this time, at becoming dictator-in-chief.
But now it is time for true patriotic Americans to truly take our country back from those that want to turn our democracy into an autocracy.
That is not done through violence.
That is not done through hatred.
That is done through voting.
This November vote for democracy and against autocracy.
That is the only way to keep America great.
