THE VIEWS  SET FORTH in this book in this divided age may not be of general acceptance. Great wrongs or inexcusable behavior or deeply false interpretation, if maintained for a lengthy period, will begin to become part of the established code of behavior of civilized man. Then a great reformer appears on the scene and points out how wrong or evil or false or untrue all of this is, and people will begin to change. Slavery in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is certainly an example. Individual elements of the moral code, such as the death penalty or individual behavior once thought to be worthy and strong, can over time come to be seen as onerous or destructive or even evil and intolerable. It happened to Senator Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin who, once thought to be a defender of our country’s national security, later came to be seen as a scourge for the freedom of thought. He eventually drank himself to death.

These are difficult times for democracy in the United States some 248 years after the Declaration of Independence. The 2024 nominee of one of our nation’s two great political parties, the Republican Party, which was once led by our greatest president, Abraham Lincoln, has indicated that he no longer cares anymore about our Constitution and intends if elected not to observe it in any way. Donald J. Trump, the nominee, previously (2017-2021) President of the United States of America, once publicly rebuked our excellent intelligence establishment for stating the obvious—that the dictator/president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, interfered with our presidential election in 2016—with Putin sitting right next to him, and the world public in front of him listening in via television. The president is supposed to be the servant and protector of this great country, but Trump acts as though he works not for his and our country but actually for one of the most evil and murderous leaders in the world, Vladimir Putin. Trump is subservient to the line coming from Moscow, and he is now trying to spread it among the free-thinking American people. He has perhaps a quarter of the people in the country blindly following him—the 25 percent—free American people following a president in thrall to a corrupt, criminal Russian ruler and himself, Donald Trump, a criminal and corrupt as well.

Fortunately, he was ousted from rule in 2020 by a man, Joseph Biden, a true American, a faithful follower of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Biden has done an outstanding job as the president in both foreign and domestic policy. One of the best ever. However, he chose not to seek reelection.

Unfortunately, Trump is back on the scene, carrying initially 91 felony counts—indictments by our legal system of serious wrongdoings. Thirty-four of those are now discharged by conviction on all 34 in a jury trial in New York. Even so, the 25 percent who support Trump are still there. Manu are people who object to immigrants from ethnic groups other than Northern Europeans and want to block such individuals from entering the country. The same sentiments apply to American citizens of color or alien ethnic groups that are not Northern European. They have a right to stay in the country but can never be more than second-class citizens. Trump tells the 25 percent that is what he will deliver, knowing himself that it is wrong and deeply un-American as well as impossible. George Washington, our first president and the commander of our victorious army of the Revolution, said as much at the successful end of the Revolutionary War in his farewell speech to his troops: “The bosom of America is open to receive not only the opulent and respectable stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all notions and religions…”

As far as Trump goes, one of our most influential, reputable, and heroic Founders, Alexander Hamilton, in effect, called him out in 1787:

“A dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues and ending tyrants.”

As Liz Cheney, a former congresswoman and leader of the people, put it on the NBC Today Show on December 11, 2023, if Donald Trump is elected to a second term, he will not follow the Constitution, he will not allow another vote for president at the end of that term, he will never leave office, he will establish a dictatorship; in short, he will destroy our democratic republic. The is a very dangerous time; the choice in November of 2024 would be between the Constitution and a dictatorship. If Trump wins the vote in November, it could be the end of our democratic republic. On this point, my revered predecessor, Thomas Paine, though it was almost 250 years ago, gave the correct response to Liz Cheney:

“The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind… [it] is the concern of every man [or woman] to whom nature has given the power of feeling; or which class, regardless of party censure, is the author.”

We all must ensure, as Abraham Lincoln stated in his Gettysburg Address, “…this nation, under God… and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Thomas Graham, Jr.
Washington, DC
August 5, 2024