‘Autocracy’

To the editor:

As someone who grew up during the Cold War era and witnessed the hypocrisy of the Russian and Chinese communist parties’ “we are for the people” stance, it is dismaying to see the United States slide from democracy to autocracy. The current administration is conducting military style operations in American cities and restricting dissent in fundamental ways: Our leaders make a legally questionable policy, people protest that policy and then our government replies with force. The government then blames the people protesting and they lie about what happened. These things are contrary to our basic American values. They are elements of classic autocracy.

Bill Perkins Suttons Bay