In Defense of Democracy Against Its Existential Threat

In a democratic environment, an opponent with whom one might disagree is your adversary; not your enemy. In the current authoritarian climate, we are being told to regard our fellow citizen as a mortal threat. In Trump’s fever-dreamed version of fascistic fatalism, this notion is applied more broadly to designate certain sovereign states as enemy territories subject to invasion by a federalized militia acting on behalf of a single leader’s delusional conception of the national political landscape. This is done at the expense of otherwise free-thinking citizens suddenly caught in the crosshairs of a militarized and thoroughly unaccountable governmental force. These are the ingredients for nationwide civil unrest as Americans are turned against each other by the sinister manipulations of a regime dedicated to the maintenance and expansion of a perennial autocracy acting on behalf of narrow corporate interests while democratic values and institutions are summarily discarded into the dustbin of history. We cannot allow this dark vision of our future to prevail! Now is the moment to stand tall against these destructive elements and reassert our full faith, confidence, and collective will in the pursuit of freedom over oppression. Rise, resist, and reclaim our national identity as an open, inclusive, tolerant, multicultural, just, and forwardly directional people.