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Our choice: Democracy or Trumpocracy
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To the editor:


Whether God’s “Chosen One” or not, Trump cannot recreate the world in his own image, no matter how loud and proud he lays out his ersatz pinball wizardry through higher-and-mightier-than-thou executive orders. As one who is anything but a shining moral exemplar, and as a leader in an increasingly unfree world, Trump is fast approaching the end of a rope that includes an ever-tightening noose. He is tightening the noose on a populace he cannot perceive as human. Why? Because they are Democrat, liberal, nonvoting critics of his questionable character and anyone who fails to swim in turbulent waters, obstacles and all, as his Ship of State sails right on by, oblivious to anyone’s desperate plight.

And the cruelest irony? He talks a talk so disconnected from real lives that he can lure salivating people just long enough for a photo-op and shallow language that has the lexical strength of a rambling idiot on hallucinogens.

Yes, I confess to having tried to be more circumspect in the past with my criticism of this seeming mutant alien who happens to reside on planet earth.

No racism? No climate change? Militarized police? RBG needing to be replaced before Election Day? A vaccine for COVID before, again, Election Day? Only Dem states responsible for pandemic disasters? Only left-wing radical violence (no right-wing, Trump forbid) in only liberal states? Only Christians approved by him as being authentic? Taking a wait-and-see approach to election results? No regrets, no fault and awarding himself a grade of A+. Really?

No need for a dirty-laundry list, I know, but as an issue-oriented human being, I despair at 70 years of age my grandchildren and progeny after them living in a world where a radical centrist merging of the two political parties ends in failure.

Climate disasters. Uncivil wars with guns and more guns and whatever is invented and kills. Starvation and homelessness. Untreated mental illnesses. Untold heartbreak. Broken spirits.

Anything but a democracy. The “art of the possible” needs to replace the unconscionable practice of the “art of the deal” in a more nuanced way in a nation of “social complexity.”

Are we going to reorient to ethical centrism or a rabid-dog cultic loyalism of a man who could care less about a real democracy? If he had his way, I suspect he would celebrate the day a Trumpocracy emerged.

On Nov. 3 at least consider the possibility that he is not only indifferent to Americans as human beings, but would relish a New America in which any criticism of him or his loyalists would make you – no matter your station in life – an enemy of the state.

Remember, it has happened before and is happening now in other countries. Once a state, no longer a democracy.

Think I’m an alarmist? A catastrophist? I suggest removing the scales from your eyes, listen to anyone with at least a lukewarm heart, whose brain hasn’t dumbed down and who wants politicians to meet in the middle of the legislative aisle and talk amiably and responsibly.

Please, God, enable more of us to bring about a revived democracy of reason and love, striving for a heaven on earth, as Jesus taught through example and word, and as wise ones from wisdom traditions the world over have taught since antiquity.

We can, and must, rise above the chaotic reign of a president who sees selfishly through a dark lens and speaks words beyond vanity.

Hearts and minds need a conscientious realignment.


Richard Joel Holmes

Hays