Letters to the Editor: How we the people are letting Trump destroy our democracy
What a difference two years makes.
Less than a year ago, Donald Trump was still a long shot candidate whose very candidacy was anathema to most — if not all — of America.
Today, with all the evidence at hand to prove that Trump won’t be the president in 2016, we’re forced to wonder:
If Trump is such a threat to American democracy, why did all the leading candidates of both major parties vote in lock step to back him up?
There is no legitimate logical explanation for why the Democratic Party, under Hillary Clinton, and the Republican Party, under Donald Trump, both backed his candidacy. Why didn’t we hear from Hillary or anyone else about how bad Trump was to American democracy? Why did we not hear from GOP presidential candidates, even if they tried to distance themselves from Trump?
A lot of other Americans aren’t happy with Hillary or President Donald Trump. Some voters have chosen other candidates because they feel that the alternative candidate is worse — not because it is more “democratic.”
To the contrary, I would argue, the alternative candidates are worse because they continue to embrace the same policies that Trump does.
I’m not even suggesting that Hillary and Trump are equally bad, but what they share are the same policies that have brought us to this point in our nation.
There are two ways a person can be anti-democratic. They can be anti-democracy, which is to say they are committed to doing something, anything, to stop democracy.
Or, they can be anti-democrat. They may not vote, they may vote no on a single issue, but their entire political ideology is in opposition to democracy.
They are anti-democracy.
Here is one example of what I mean:
In 2010, the National Rifle Association endorsed Mitt Romney in the primary. I would say that the NRA was anti-democrat — anti-the most basic precept of American democracy.
That’s not how they see it.
They see it the very opposite way. They see it as the best way to protect our nation.