Every American schoolchild learns the story. This country was founded after a guerrilla army of colonialists staged a rebellion against a distant king. After overcoming the king’s mighty army, the rebels came together to set up a system of government to prevent the rise of kings here, and for the past 250 years that has been successful.
Occasionally there have been men who tried to attain king-like powers, but the Constitutional system of checks and balances has prevented them from doing so.
That’s the story and it’s true.
But the story doesn’t have an ending yet. By its nature it’s an evolving story. We now have a man in our midst who would be king if he could be, and millions of Americans have swallowed his claim that he embodies their sense of grievance and deserves to be returned to power.
The first time he became President, helped by foreign interference, a racist reaction to the rise of the first black man to hold the job, and a deep-seated fear of the emergence of a diverse, globalized society that seemed to replacing what was familiar and romanticized as a golden age, he snuck into office with a minority of the popular vote.
That was one of the lowest moments in American history. But there was worse to come.
When four years later this man lost both the popular vote and the all-important electoral vote by a wide margin, for a brief moment it seemed that democracy had prevailed again.
Rather than skulk away in defeat, however, this power-mad despot desperately tried to undermine the outcome in every way he could, ultimately inciting a mob of his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol in an insurrection.
This was the lowest point in our history, at least since the Civil War.
The mob was repelled and democracy survived, but bruised and battered.
But now he’s back. This is his third attempt to seize power and by now he is both more desperate and much better prepared for the battle. The legal system is strained to the breaking point trying to hold him accountable for his many crimes, but his fierce army of zombie-like followers believe that it is the system that is wrong, not him.
That’s the present political moment. God help us and God help America. Democracy hangs in the balance.
(I first published a version of this essay one year ago.)
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