VOTE LIKE YOUR FREEDOM DEPENDS UPON IT BECAUSE IT DOES

Donald Trump represents a “clear and present danger” to the United States of America. Since 1959, I have voted in every election. Many times I may have disagreed with the candidate I did not select, and many times I disagreed with some of the beliefs of the candidate for whom I voted, but every candidate until 2016 was a person of integrity who, despite human faults, always realized that their election made them responsible for each and every American and for the overall good of the Republic’s Constitution .

Every day now, we take on step closer to a Constitutional crisis. Every morning, I awaken more frightened than I have ever been of our elected officials, whose job as the elected is to serve the people by introducing and passing legislation that will protect all our “life liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

We are in the throes of Trumpism. The very fact that he continues to draw crowds at his rallies and that his approval rating, once at 40% has recently risen to 42% speaks volumes about mostly caucasian American people’s giving into fear and racism, or feeling empowered to do so.

Steve Schmidt enumerated the five reasons we should all be aware that we are on our way to something totalitarian:
“We're seeing at this moment a president of the United States do five things. He is using mass rallies that are fueled by constant lying to incite fervor and devotion in his political base.

The second thing we see him do is to affix blame for every problem in the world. Many of them are complex, not so different from the issues faced at the end of Agrarian age and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. We see him attack minority populations with words like "invade" and “infest.”

The third thing he does is a create a shared sense of victimization caused by the scapegoated populations. This is the high act of Trumpism: From Trump to Sean Hannity to Laura Ingraham, everyone is a victim.

The fourth thing he does is he alleges conspiracy by nefarious and unseen hidden forces – the "deep state.”

And the fifth thing is the assertion that "I am the law, that I am above it." He just said immigrants don't get a hearing; they don't get a court representation.”

In addition, the rule of separation between church and state has become nearly non-existent. Many so-called Christian Evangelicals no longer ask WWJD, but rather What Can White Americans Do to Maintain Power.

Schmidt, in his interview with Rolling Stone Magazine (which everyone who loves this country should read) also had this to say about the present Party of Trump:
“The Republican Party isn't going to die because of Trump. It's going to die because of Ryan and McConnell. You're now left with one political party in support of liberal democracy.”

If McConnell’s delaying Merrick Garland’s hearing for the Supreme Court coupled with his insistence that whoever Trump choses for the post be chosen BEFORE mid term elections doesn’t raise hundreds of red flags, America takes a giant step out of independence and into a fascist rule.

All of this, coupled with gerrymandering and obviously ignored Russian interference with our electoral process spells total disaster unless each and every one of us, and I do mean each and every person reading this that supports a liberal democracy, votes!

We had best vote like our freedom depends upon it because it truly does!