Sam Smith - The Senate vote on impeachment constitutes a major
attack on both the Constitution and democracy. According to the view of
the Senate Republicans, the President can do whatever he wants - much
in the manner, say, of Putin - without any constraint by the
legislature. The disempowering of a legislature is a primary step in
creating a dictatorship.
Trump is a man, incidentally,
not only charged with impeachment, but accused of fraud, deception,
sexual abuse, and more than 15,000 lies or misstatements while in
office. Thus the Republicans have not only voted against our system of
government but are happy to replace it with a dictator devoid of any
conscience and decency.
Trump didn't just happen,
however. As early as 17 years ago I started writing about the collapse
of the First American Republic, beginning in the Reagan administration
and marked by such factors as the decline of labor unions, the
replacement of constituent service with false propaganda claiming it,
the rise of corporatism, the decline of the values of religion and other
ethical sources, and a media increasingly concerned with, and
responsible to, those at the top rather than the country as a whole.
To
change all this depends in no small part on a younger generation
becoming far more angry and active and the use of localities and states
to build and maintain the values that once defined what America was
trying to be about.
