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Good Morning Fellow Democrats:
“A republic . . . if you can keep it!” – Dr. Benjamin Franklin in 1787, when asked what sort of government the Constitutional Convention had provided for the American people.
A little less than 55 years ago I began a period in my life when I served in the US Army. That service began with raising my right hand and swearing an oath that I would support and defend the Constitution of the United States “against all enemies, foreign and domestic”. Every elected official, from the President on down to local officeholders, as well as every member of the military and every veteran, has sworn a similar oath at some point.
There was a time limit on my time to be spent in uniform upholding that oath, but the oath itself has no time limitation. It’s still valid. Although I’m obviously too old to take up arms to support and defend the Constitution against foreign enemies, there is still much that I can do to stand up against domestic enemies, and as we move into the 2024 election cycle, I will continue to take my oath seriously.
There has never been any clearer domestic enemy of the Constitution as we currently see in Donald J. Trump. When he was running for re-election in 2020, he vowed to serve a second term and then run for a third term, in violation of the Constitution. He tried to set aside the legitimate votes of the people in 2020 to give himself a second term, despite clearly losing the election, in violation of the Constitution. And lately, as a candidate, he has publicly declared that he would be a dictator “on Day One” if he’s elected in 2024, in violation of the Constitution.
Some of his supporters have claimed that his “dictator” comment was “only a joke”, but the idea of a dictatorship in America is no joking matter. Republics are fragile systems. We need to remember that members of the Nazi party were legally elected in Germany in 1933, resulting in Adolf Hitler being appointed Chancellor, the first step to Hitler becoming an absolute dictator. There is little doubt that Trump, if he’s elected in 2024, would seize more power than the Constitution allows the President. He would, indeed, declare himself to be above the Constitution. This next year, every American alive today . . . not just those who have sworn an oath to do so . . . should do everything they can to support and defend our Constitution against the greatest domestic enemy to it that we’ve ever seen.
STAND UP! PUSH BACK! VOTE!
Bill Peifer
DPTC Vice Chair
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