Voters must stop repeat of Trump presidency

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, August 8, 2023

The United States of America has presented itself to the world as a beacon of democracy for well over 200 years. Our country is not a pure democracy. It is a republican form of government that has certain non-democratic elements. Nonetheless, democracy has always been one of this country’s foundational values.

Today that value is under threat as it has perhaps never been before. When he was president, Donald Trump did all he could to run this country as authoritarian rather than democratic. He neither understood nor cared about the Constitution. When he lost the 2020 election, he tried by numerous illegal means to reverse the outcome of that free and fair election and remain in power though the American people had voted him out of office.

Today the once respectable Republican Party has become a Donald Trump cult of personality. Trump has recently made it clear that if he is reelected in 2024 he will work even harder to dismantle American democracy and rule essentially as a dictator. Our country looks more today like Germany in the early 1930s than any of us ever thought it possibly could. We must take this threat to American democracy seriously. The stakes could not be higher. We all must do whatever we legally can to stop the anti-democratic MAGA movement from once again assuming power in Washington, D.C.

Rev. Dr. Thomas C. Sorenson

Sultan