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Americans must break with Trump

Our country is at a crossroads.

They said it couldn’t happen here. Not in this country. Not the United States of America. But it could. And it is. I am talking about nothing less than the prospect of authoritarian rule at the level of the highest office in the land and the end of American democracy as we know it.

This country, and so much of what I believed it represents — its values, its “exceptionalism,” its respect for the common people, the working class, the downtrodden, people of every possible ethnicity, the entire immigrant population that gave birth to America’s greatness — is now under siege at the hands of an aspiring dictator, our so-called commander-in-chief, perhaps more aptly characterized in George Bryzak’s recent Adirondack Daily Enterprise commentary, “The Great Pretender” (Sept. 7), as an imposter of pretended patriotism. This is a con man with manipulative skills the likes of which this country has never before experienced, who knows no bounds in his disregard for truth, law, justice, the judiciary system, free press, national intelligence and, above all, the Constitution of the United States, which he has taken an oath to defend but, for all purposes, is doing his utmost to undermine.

I have witnessed a great many historic events over the course of my 80 years of existence. I was old enough to participate in the celebration of the end of World War II and mature enough to appreciate the significance of the defeat of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany. But I have not since experienced anything that begins to approach what is presently happening to this country as a result of the fear-mongering, hate-filled rhetoric and divisive leadership of our current disruptor-in-chief. President Trump is not bringing this country together, let alone making it great again. He is doing his best to tear it apart. I have never before feared for our country. But I genuinely fear for it now.

Our president is an inveterate liar, with an unprecedented record of 4,229 “untruths” to his credit — and counting — since taking office, according to a recent piece in the New Yorker (Aug. 3) by Susan B. Glasser, “It’s True: Trump is lying more, and he’s doing it on purpose.” Donald Trump is waging a war on truth. And truth is the lifeblood of democracy. Make no mistake. Donald Trump is a demagogue in the making, a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises to gain power. And the one thing, above all else, that demagogues cannot abide is truth.

Aside from my evident concern with the inestimable damage that Donald Trump already has inflicted on the institution of the presidency, our nation and indeed the world since assuming office not even two years ago — think withdrawal from the Paris accords and climate change, emasculation of the Environmental Protection Agency, denigration of our intelligence community, abasement of NATO and our closest allies, trillion-dollar tax cut for the rich, love affair with Vladimir Putin, and I could go on — I find myself thoroughly disheartened by the partisan response of the Republican Congress and Senate in the face of this president’s performance, putting party and personal gain before country. The Republican Party’s decision to continually look the other way in response to Trump’s behavior, to abandon altogether its sworn responsibility to advise and consent, is beyond spineless. It is shameful. And it is a betrayal to what this country is supposed to be all about.

It is time for this nation to wake up and take seriously the actions of this president and his administration, to no longer excuse or dismiss them as just another episode in Donald Trump’s version of a long-running TV reality show but to recognize them for what they are, a threat to our national security and way of life. Morton Halperin, who once served on Richard Nixon’s National Security Council, was recently asked by The New Yorker’s Susan B. Glasser what Halperin thought of the proliferating Trump-Nixon comparisons. According to Glasser, Halpern insisted, strongly, that Nixon wasn’t nearly as damaging to the institution of the presidency as Trump has been. “He’s far worse than Nixon,” Halpern said, “certainly as a threat to the country.”

Despite the gravity of the situation in which we currently find ourselves, I remain hopeful that the American people will rise to the challenge of one of the gravest of threats to our well-being in the history of the republic. Donald Trump inadvertently has provided us with just such an opportunity, the opportunity to rediscover ourselves, to recommit to what we really and truly believe and stand for. That opportunity will present itself, for starters, in the upcoming midterm elections, and the chance to have more than a single party in charge of both the executive and legislative branches of our government. Should, however, both the House and Senate remain firmly under Republican Party control following these elections, all bets are off. There will then be no real checks on this president. He will instead be free and emboldened to further pursue his dream of dictatorship, and I truly fear we will have seen the end of American democracy as we know it.

It is time for us to demand the return of that democracy. It is time to move this country forward, not backward. The alternative is to stand by and wring our hands in despair. In that event, we may ultimately have to admit to ourselves, our children and our grandchildren that, despite our belief that it couldn’t happen here, it did.

Joe Mercurio lives in Saranac Lake.

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