I consider this issue so important that I must launch it with this politically correct introduction:
My Fellow Americans
The mid-term election is less than a month away and may be the most important in our nation’s history. The only issue on all of our ballots is DEMOCRACY VS AUTOCRACY. I ask you to love our nation enough that you commit to reading to the end.
This “truth” is so basic that it is fundamental. To understand, we must remember how our two major political parties got to where we are today:
- Democrats – After Nixon managed to secure the solid South for the Republican Party, the Democratic party sold out rural America. (Note: I have been furious with the Democratic National Committee (DNC) for over 40 years because of this betrayal.) This DNC decision continues to fan the fires that stop our country from uniting. Growing up in a small rural county in central Kentucky, the direct damage this switch inflicted on my state, and the nation is personal to me. I have never fully agreed with the saying, “We went to suburbia because that’s where the votes are,” but it is a fact.
- Republicans – The decision left the Republican Party with only its traditional wealthy members and rural America. The changes made a gigantic difference in the base of each party, with the Democratic party growing into an urban/suburban party and, in doing so, outnumbering the Republican Party almost 4 to 1.
This change was the driving factor that forced the Republican Party to become the party of grievances, primarily white grievances, since Republicans could not be satisfied with only 20% of the electorate.
So here we are, frustrated and disgusted that government decisions made with anger and forced gridlock are not fully meeting the needs of either of our constituencies. For example:
- Medical costs? Republicans blocked the $35 cap on insulin and have tried to stop the Affordable Care Act so many times I have lost track.
- Border issues? Republicans refuse to work jointly with Democrats to solve immigration issues.
- Abortion? Republicans celebrate the Supreme Court decision that took away women’s rights to decide their own medical care.
- Or see the 2020 election – even after checking and verifying many thousands of ballots, we still have people who believe the election was stolen. It was not, but worse yet, now election-denier candidates are saying if they lose in 2022, it will mean the election was stolen. Well, no, an election cannot be stolen before anyone has voted.
This issue is so important that I must again rely on my hero Walter Lippmann. In 1937, Lippmann finished writing the Good Society – a three hundred-plus page tome I thought was a bible for what a democratic government should be. He went into great detail on how a government based on Law was such a good creation, but … then, he took me completely back when he ended by saying a “Good Society was based on “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
I had previously read Lippman’s Public Opinion, where he reached the conclusion that it might be impossible for a democracy to function effectively in modern society because things – media, technology, and more, change so rapidly that the public can’t keep up. He recommended a government structure that I identified with that of Confucius and his Great Chinese dynasty that was serviced by a vast civil service of experts in all fields.
But I re-read both books, and I now understand. Lippmann’s Public Opinion restated his faith in democracy. The 2nd book was not an endorsement of a New Deal, a Fair Deal, a Great Deal, a Great Society, or Make America Great Again but rather, it is an endorsement of “The Good Society.”
So my hero endorsed the need for democracy that underpins all his writings. I can say without fear that our vote in 2022 must be for democracy to continue; this means we must vote for only DEMOCRATS, which is how we can control the House and Senate.
If Biden is a lame duck in 2023, whatever happens in 2024 will be of no consequence. We will find ourselves with a completely different form of government in 2025, e.g., Republicans have already promised to eliminate:
- The January 6th committee will be gone, and with it, consequences for those who attacked our country as they tried to throw out our people’s votes in favor of the candidate who lost;
- Eliminate Social Security, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act;
- Hold Up Court Vacancies;
- Pass a law that makes abortion illegal for all 50 states, causing women to lose all rights to make decisions on their health care.
- Stop child nutrition feeding programs;
- And more: See this Washington Post story.
Would this be a “GOOD SOCIETY?” I think not!
In summary, it’s not about one single issue or another. Instead, should the January 6th Committee be stopped and the people who tried to throw out the 2020 election get by without consequences, we Americans lose our rights to free and honest elections. The United States of America will evolve into a form of dictatorship – autocracy, theocracy, or oligarchy.