Democracy or Autocracy?

October 1, 2020

As the editor of the coastal monthly newspaper The Lighthouse Peddler, I decided to write a cover story about the 2020 election. While not my usual subject matter, the 2020 election is clearly the most significant event during the next 30 days, and frankly, it is the election of our lives. Here’s my cover story.

For those wondering why this is the cover story of a monthly newspaper that focuses on local events, the answer is simple. Election Day is coming, and as many have already stated, no election in our various lifetimes is more important than this one. It’s clearly an event, and regardless of which side of the presidential debate you’re on, it’s important that you vote. In our opinion, the current president has not earned a second term. 

He has lied to us almost 30,000 times. He misled the public on multiple occasions about the nature and danger of the Corona Virus. He called our fallen soldiers “losers” and “suckers”. He ignored Russian bounties on American troops in Afghanistan. He abused the power of his office by enriching himself, his family, and his personal (privately-held) businesses by, for example, directing the American Ambassador in Britain to get the British Government to select his personal golf course in Scotland to host the British Open. As a writer quipped, “He hasn’t landed the tournament yet. But attempted sleaze is still sleaze.” He has used his pardon power to free unrepentant felons who have pled guilty to their crimes.

Instead of bringing the country together he has used chaos to rule this democracy. He’s promised since before the 2016 election that he has a new, better, cheaper healthcare plan. No plan has surfaced, although every time he’s asked about it he responds by saying “we’ll introduce it in the next few weeks”. The reality is that he’s been in office for 200 weeks and there is no health care plan, and at the same time he is in front of the Supreme Court right now trying to overturn the Affordable Care Act. He prefers coal, oil and nuclear energy to anything else, ignoring the obvious benefits of, for example, solar energy. He wants to restrict a woman’s rights to reproductive options. He hopes to end Social Security. He prefers autocrats like Russia’s Putin, Turkey’s Erdogan and North Korea’s Kim Jung Un, to democratically elected leaders.

In 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked if the United States would be a monarchy or a republic. Franklin’s response was “A republic, if you can keep it.” All of that being said, vote your will. Vote your conscience. But vote.