Democracy Under Fire

Donald Trump has repeatedly demonstrated that he is a dishonest, self-centered, destructive individual who is doing everything he can to undermine the foundations of our democracy.

It is not too early to begin to worry about what a second term for Trump would bring, given his past actions and the positions he has publicly taken to this point in the 2024 presidential campaign.

Trump clearly has no intention of yielding his autocratic control of the Republican Party. For example, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives recently voted to pass a resolution censuring Democratic Representative Adam Schiff, a prominent Trump critic. Prior to that vote, Trump had warned GOP reps: “Any Republican voting against Adam Schiff’s censure, or worse, should immediately be primaried,”

By the way, our two Berrien County Representatives, Huizenga and Walberg, seem to be on board, as they voted “yes” to censure Representative Schiff.

There is an additional set of actions in the works to “expunge” the two impeachments of Trump during his term in office. Despite the fact that such an action has no constitutional basis, it has received approval from the Republican Speaker of the House. We will have to wait and see what our two guys do with this unconstitutional proposal.

Another example of Trump’s anti-democracy campaign is a recent social media post in which he declared “REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS SHOULD DEFUND THE DOJ AND FBI UNTIL THEY COME TO THEIR SENSES.”

A former member of Trump’s Homeland Security staff recently reported that: “The former president once sought his own mercenaries, like Putin’s Wagner Group.” No further details on how that body would be tasked, but the possibilities are scary.

It remains to be seen how the House will respond to these new threats, but to this point, whatever Donald wants, Donald gets. It is a bad omen, given that Bill Barr, Trump’s former Attorney General, recently compared Trump to “a defiant 9-year-old kid.”

A second Trump term would be extremely dangerous for our democracy.

Ed Shaffer

Galien