February 27th 2020

By James Rogers Bush

We all have a choice to make. We cannot have it both ways. Donald Trump and the people who support him are a present and very real danger to the republic. And we must now choose to either let them continue to take our nation down a rabbit hole of corruption and dictatorship or fight to put an end to their attempted coup and recover our democratic republic for ourselves and posterity.

There is no other way around it. Our country is too divided and those on the Trump side lack the moral compass and intellectual acuity necessary to see that what they’re doing is wrong. They seem to lack the insight necessary to see the importance of adhering to the political traditions and values that our founding fathers hammered out and left to us. In their ignorance, mendacity, and self-interest they seem to think that they and the world have outgrown the need for a brace of honorable men and women who understand the importance of the rule of law and good, honest governance on both a local and national level. Power, money, and dominance, combined with xenophobia, misogyny, and racial and religious intolerance appear to be both their underlying and overarching motivations.

Perhaps the choice that we’re now facing was inevitable. Perhaps, as a democratic society progresses, it is inevitable that those who were once in the majority will start to feel threatened when a new paradigm presents to them a world where they will no longer be in the majority; where they will no longer dominate; and where the things that they identify with, such as their race, religion, and gender relationships are no longer looked upon as the only right way things should be. And when this happens, perhaps there are always those men and women who, motivated by their own selfish, twisted, and mercenary desires, will take advantage of the fear that comes to those who feel threatened by changes that they feel leave them and their old ways behind.

But change is the way of life, and in a constitutional democracy, change is how we attempt to mold our nation into a “more perfect union.” However, none of us can know exactly what a more perfect union will ultimately look like because there is no final perfect union, there is only the ongoing perfecting of the union through the natural process of change, guided by the wisdom that our imperfect founding fathers were somehow able to embed in our constitution. Those of us who understand this, welcome change and the new possibilities for perfecting our union that comes with it. Those of us who do not, resist change and try to retard or even reverse it, causing division within our nation.

Donald Trump does not know or understand history, nor does he understand how our political system works. He does not understand how change can be a positive thing in a healthy democracy. He does not understand how bringing people together instead of manipulating their fears is a truly democratic way. All Donald Trump knows is how to scam his way through life and the underworld of dirty money. And all Donald Trump cares about are those things that enhance not just his wealth but his ego, which is the only way he knows how to achieve self-worth. His father taught him that winning was the only thing worth doing in life, and to win one has to be a “killer.” So Donald Trump has brought this ethic, if one can call it that, to the White House. And since all he’s known, both in the business world and in the political world, are corrupt business people and corrupt politicians, he thinks that putting like-minded people in positions of power and then behaving as if he can do whatever he wants is perfectly appropriate.

We must now choose to either let Donald Trump and his cohorts continue to get away with what they are doing or let them know that they cannot get away with doing whatever they want, especially if what they want amounts to the potential destruction of our republic. We must now choose to either let Trump and his cohorts continue to drag our democracy down or let them know that there are still honorable men and women in America who believe in and are willing to fight for our constitution, our Bill of Rights, and our democratic form of government. We must now choose to either let Vladimir Putin manipulate our president and our electoral system to suit his nefarious ends or let him know that he cannot manipulate us the way he has manipulated the Russian people. We must now choose to either give up our freedom or let the world know that we will never give up our freedom to a domestic interloper or foreign power.

So now we have a choice, and the choice is clear, either we choose to let Donald Trump and his cohorts go on dismantling our democratic republic or we choose to fight to save it. I think most of us know what the choice must be and how the fight should continue. We have taken back the House, and since the impeachment process did not succeed in taking him out, then we must vote Trump out in 2020. We MUST vote him out!