A Reckless Trump Undermines Democracy

What is happening to our country?

For generations, going all the way back to the 13 colonies, the Founding Fathers wanted this place to be different from other nations. People in America would be able to speak and think freely and move about at will. People would get to vote on the people who would make decisions. And there would be a Constitution that spelled this all out.

John Winthrop made the trek in 1630 from England to what we know today as Massachusetts. He described the America that he found as a beacon for people looking for a better, more prosperous and secure future.

“We must always consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us,” Winthrop told the colonists.

Today, 386 years after Winthrop’s observations, we are a couple of weeks away from an election to choose the next president of the United States.

But instead of celebrating the role of everyday Americans in the peaceful transfer of power from one president to the next, instead of appealing to our patriotism and urging us to support his vision for our nation, Trump is waging a campaign like none of us has ever witnessed before.

He is rocking the foundation upon which our nation was built. He warns that the election is being stolen right out from under him by a candidate he calls “evil.” And if he is victorious, Trump tells his audiences he will put Hillary Clinton — “Crooked Hillary,” as he calls her — in jail.

What is happening to our country?

This is not some dictatorship where the losing candidates are strung up from a tree or shot at sunrise. This was not some heat-of-the-moment comment Trump uttered once. The inflammatory comments have been a fixture at his rallies for months, with his supporters chanting “lock her up, lock her up.”

During an event in Lakeland, Fla., a few days ago, Trump jumped on the chants. “Lock her up is right,” he said. “She has to go to jail.”

Trump is going where no candidate has gone in our lifetimes. Richard Nixon didn’t have deep affection for John Kennedy. But he did not crisscross the country calling Kennedy a crook and trying to undermine public confidence in the election.

After Kennedy won by a whisker, Nixon conceded defeat and let the new president get on with the task of healing the divisions the hard-fought campaign left. Nixon didn’t tell audiences day after day after day that he had been robbed by Kennedy, by the Democrats, or by some supposed international conspiracy. He didn’t accuse Kennedy of trying to destroy the sovereignty of the United States.

Nixon didn’t do that in 1960. Al Gore didn’t do that in 2000. But Donald Trump is doing that this year.

Trump just grins when people at his rallies spout off about Clinton or declare they are ready to take up arms if the election is “stolen” from their man.

Trump is silent when his supporters, even people who should know better like Sheriff David Clarke of Milwaukee, Wis., talk about rampant government corruption. Trump was silent when Clarke commented a few days ago that an election loss will mean it is “Pitchforks and torches time.”

A woman in Newton last week stood up at a Mike Pence rally and said she was “ready for a revolution” if Trump and Pence lose. To his credit, Pence, the level-headed one in this year’s Republican ticket, told the woman, “Don’t say that.” But I have no confidence Trump would have tried to tamp down such crazy talk.

Trump has been very comfortable sowing suspicion among his fans that the Nov. 8 election will be bogus because of what he calls a “sinister deal” cooked up by those who oppose him. But his allegations are offered without one shred of evidence.

Voter fraud is a virtually nonexistent problem in the United States. A study by the Loyola University law school found that of the 1 billion votes cast between 2000 and 2014, only 31 known cases of fraud have been found.

Beyond that, Trump’s beating the drum of doubt creates the potential that a President Hillary Clinton and Republicans and Democrats in Congress would have to try to govern a nation divided by these baseless suggestions of an illegitimate president.

This isn’t the hand-wringing of a worry wart. A new Associated Press poll found that one-third of Republicans have a great deal or quite a bit of concern that votes will not be counted fairly on Election Day.

For all of the damage Trump has inflicted on our nation during this campaign — with his name-calling, his smearing of immigrants and Muslims and the disabled, with his foul language and vilification of those who disagree with him — the greatest harm, and Trump’s most lasting legacy, would be if he succeeds in undermining public faith in our system of free and fair elections.

We don’t need some crackpot to hear Trump’s incendiary comments and decide to take a gun and “fix” that problem for Trump.

What is happening to our country?

by Randy Evans
Reprinted from the Bloomfield Democrat
Posted 10/21/16