~a column by Colleen O’Brien
People who believe in a certain definition of choice are those who know that every woman must have control of her body just as every man has control of his, and it’s nobody’s business but the individual’s.
A much more critical choice to pay attention to that is everybody’s business is whether we’re willing to fight for a democracy or watch it go the way of most democracies – to the current autocrat, another word for biggest bully.
What I find most encouraging, finally, is people who are actually shouting out loud, “Danger Ahead!”
They are Trump-disaffected Republicans. Rather than the majority party of Democrats led by a Democratic president, these intrepid Rs are Organizing with a capital “O” to defeat the extreme lying of Trump and Trumpists whose intention is to take the Midterms and the 2024 General Election. They, unlike their brother and sister Rs in the Senate, are not afraid of Trump. These born-again Republicans are clear-minded, honest and courageous. They see that Trumpism is acid eating our constitution and that the holes in that document will darken life in America if Trumpism is not laid low.
Democrats are fighting each other rather than the devoted believers in lies who are set to take over governments from school boards to President of the United States.
That any Americans can stomach this is unfortunate but not unusual; we have a history of uninformed, cultish, xenophobic, bigoted groups undermining the idea of democracy throughout our struggle to follow our own constitution. So far in today’s making of history, people of sense, steadiness and belief in a dream of equality have been sloshing around in a bog of indecision, pettiness, and backstabbing – are they bought by the Right or are they simply blind?
It has been apparent for some time that the U.S. under the influence of the far-right Republican cult of Trump is moving down there with autocratic countries throughout the history of the world and those heading toward it.
Autocracy – a system of government by one megalomaniac [a person obsessed with his own power].
Oligarchy – a small group of people having all the power in a country.
Plutocracy – government by the wealthy.
A reminder: democracy is rule by the people.
An autocrat will over-ride current law without asking and impose harsh laws as he directs state-sanctioned violence. The violence may be against drug cartels or journalists, legal protestors or hip-hop lyrics, outspoken women or books the bully doesn’t like.
Who but a megalomaniac could have dreamed we’d be teetering where we are today?
