To the editor:
Political and media messages exclaim be afraid of immigrants, that what you value will be taken away, and conspiracies: all needing a strongman to set things right. My “beach read”, Dame Mary Beard’s (PhD.) book, “The Emperor of Rome”, illustrates how a 500-year-old republic falls to a strongman claiming he can set things right, with the Roman Senators acting as, “cowards and flatterers who readily traded their freedom for wealth and political success” and supported the Caesars. Democratic republics are fragile institutions with diverse voices and require courage in their defense.
Americans cherish our democratic republic and most believe we can make a great country better, one continually evolving to realize “a more perfect union”. History records that strongmen demanding oaths of fealty have always failed their country. The strongman will refuse to accept the norms and validity of the democratic republic and its peaceful transfer of power and will undermine the institutions that uphold the rule of law necessary for a civil society. The strongman only serves the strongman, not the country. Liz Cheney, William Milliken, et al, have acted as patriots to our democratic republic by rejecting an autocrat and supporting the alternative candidate even if there are policy differences. There is a devastating threat to the US afoot, not from immigrants in a nation of immigrants, or “liberals”, or a “deep state”, but from a lack of patriotic courage to stand up to a would be autocrat and preserve our democratic republic.
Dean Manikas Maple City
