Deciding for democracy

Saturday marked a seminal moment in U.S. history.

It was the third anniversary of the second coup attempt on the nation's government. It is now known simply as January 6. When you say Jan. 6, everybody knows what you mean. It's like when you say 9-11, or Dec. 7. You just know.

The first attempted coup came 163 years ago. That one was called, simply, the Civil War. Nearly a million Americans (civilian and military) died in a span of four years in an effort to resolve whether we were really the United States, or otherwise a loose collection of states more or less independent of each other. Or, more to the point, whether we'd be a democracy, where each person is a free agent, or a slavocracy, where not all men are created equal. (Yes, Nikki Haley, slavery was the cause of the Civil War. The South said so itself. Just read their ordinances of secession here. The word "slavery" is littered across their documents).

Now, a century and a half later, democracy finds itself on the precipice again. This year, 2024, is a general election year. The choice of candidates is binary: the Founders' democracy, as embraced by President Joe Biden, or autocracy, as promised by former president Donald Trump.

Biden gave an uplifting speech in Valley Forge this week, standing on ground where George Washington once trod, illuminating the success, so far, of the American experiment in democracy. 

By comparison, Trump as asked for the suspension of the Constitution. He paraphrases Adolf Hitler. His platform is retribution against his political enemies because the Republican Party, as such, is a party of grievance that has other no serious agenda to present to the people. He rapes women, he separates nursing children from their mothers, he wants to imprison women who try to take responsibility for their own health care, he celebrates his failed coup attempt with a Big Lie, he accepts bribes from other nations. Why is he even a viable choice for president to so many Americans?

If you disagree with Biden's policies, or you think he is just too old to run (he's only three years older than Trump), or any other perceived flaw in the man, that's fine.

But for the first time that I can remember, this election will not be so much a choice of personality or individual character. It will be, rather, a choice of ideology. It will be a choice between democracy or autocracy, plain and simple.

It's your choice.