In case you missed it, Biden's stirring remarks on Memorial Day in defense of democracy, read it or pick it up on You Tube, link below..
Democracy needs defending? I never thought in my life an American would have to make a case for democracy v dictatorship, a government ruled by an autocratic person. What in the world did my uncles, cousins, son in law fight for? It wasn't to keep a national leader in power to tell you what to think or to support the laws that benefitted him or a preferred racial or ethnic group he supported to dominate others he considered lesser. Why did my husband flee a dictatorship? It was for the same reasons to avoid the rule of such a leader. What fools we are to wish for another form of government. Biden lays out the contrast between being governed by an individual who feeds his own greed and lust for power and a government ruled by the people with the purpose of creating a society that strives for fair play and decency for all of its citizens. It is one that believes all men are created equal. That is the soul of America. But I am paraphrasing his eloquent words. Read them for yourself. His comments on democracy begin about halfway through his speech. I have excerpted them here below as posted by the White House.
Are we justified in claiming Trumpists are dangerous enough to destroy democracy? I am in the midst of reading "How Democracies Die" by Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky, a history of past and current takeovers of existing democracies by autocrats and dictators. What I have taken from the book, the problem comes from all shades of political philosophy, right and left, socialists, communists, fascists, and militaristic power grabbers. Their ideologies and rationales are their sales pitch, but the result is the same...the loss of rule by the people and the end of their civil liberties if they dare to oppose the government ruled by a person instead of law. Once in full power, only violence can end it. Dictators and autocrats do not give up power without a bloody fight or a catastrophic policy loss resulting in a revolt. . A peaceful transition of power is just a quaint hope.
In current times, the autocrats and dictators gain power not so often by military putsch but by the voting booth per Ziblatt and Levitsky. Recent observations of current events show such takeover by the voting booth or violence could happen here. Mike Flynn and Matt Gaetz are both talking military-style violence to "restore" Trump to power. Trump himself incited a violent takeover of the certification of the election on January 6. These were no tourists, but they were there to scare Congress to overturn certification by 50 states after months of review by judges of all political stripes. The rioters, when in court, claimed they acted because Trump told them to do it. Over 500 arrested and the trials are just beginning.
The methods these aspiring dictators use to gain power and destroy democracy are what all of these anti-democrats have in common.. Once in power, they slowly stack the courts and military, purging those who may oppose them, asserting through lies and propaganda their opponents who beat them in elections were not legit, (Obama born in Kenya, Biden "stole" the election in spite of 60 judges ruling otherwise), destroying the free press by various means and setting up his own version of reality on TV and social media, ignoring their constitutional constraints. claiming they were above the law and could not be prosecuted for violating it, (as Trump claimed), and abusing their power to persecute those who would challenge them using his own justice department's investigative powers to ignore supporter's actions and to investigate even conspiracy theories while twisting the findings( as Bill Barr did in the Russian interference investigations and as Trump ordered the DOJ to investigate wild conspiracy theories). Donald Trump is a prototype personality of a wannabe dictator and even in his four years in power, he attempted some of these techniques. He took over the GOP dominance of local to state governments with leaders and candidates and legislators who dare not cross him for fear they would lose their power to win in primaries. Tell me this is not true.
Putting the blame where it should be, the GOP itself, is responsible, for their own current situation. . In the book, How Democracies Die", western democracies, political parties were responsible for the rise of Hitler and Mussolini, and many others have been failed. democracies. The political parties failed to weed out the bad guys earlier in the process...Even worse, in parliamentary democracies, in order to form a coalition government, the more dominant power made the fatal error of inviting the bad guys into governance. Trump, the most extreme, was not weeded out in 2015 and he in turn eventually weeded out the traditional Republicans. The present current GOP is fully the Trump party now. The GOP rode the tiger in 2015 and it devoured them. It is now the party of white nationalism put into action through its voter suppression methods and against any federal programs 60% to 70% of voters want. Those not pledging allegiance to Trump need to ask themselves what do they think the GOP stands for and whether in good conscience, can they support it.
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Now to Biden's words:
"The soul of America is animated by the perennial battle between our worst instincts — which we’ve seen of late — and our better angels. Between “Me first” and “We the People.” Between greed and generosity, cruelty and kindness, captivity and freedom.
The Americans of Lexington and Concord, of New Orleans, Gettysburg, the Argonne, Iwo Jima and Normandy, Korea and Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, and thousands of places in between — these Americans weren’t fighting for dictators; they were fighting for democracy.
They weren’t fighting to exclude or to enslave; they were fighting to build and broaden and liberate. They weren’t fighting for self; they were fighting for the soul of the nation, for liberty and simple fair play — simple fair play and decency.
Today, as we remember their sacrifice, we remind ourselves of our duty to their memory, to the future they fought for. We owe the honored dead a debt we can never fully repay. We owe them our whole souls. We owe them our full best efforts to perfect the Union for which they died.
We owe them the work of our hands and our hearts, to make real the promise of a nation founded on the proposition that all of us — all of us — all of us are created equal and deserve to be treated that way throughout our lives.
Democracy is more than a form of government. It’s a way of being; it’s a way of seeing the world. Democracy means the rule of the people — the rule of the people. Not the rule of monarchs, not the rule of the moneyed, not the rule of the mighty — literally, the rule of the people.
The lives of billions, from antiquity to our own hour, have been shaped by the battle between aspirations of the many and the greed of the few. Between people’s right to self-determination and the self-seeking of the dictator. Between dreams of democracy and appetites for autocracy, which we’re seeing around the world.
Our troops have fought this battle on fields around the world, but also the battle of our time. And the mission falls to each of us, each and every day. Democracy itself is in peril, here at home and around the world.
What we do now — what we do now, how we honor the memory of the fallen, will determine whether or not democracy will long endure. We all take it for granted. We think we learned in school. You have to — every generation has to fight for it.
But, look, it’s the biggest question: Whether a system that prizes the individual, that bends towards liberty, that gives everybody a chance at prosperity — whether that system can and will prevail against powerful forces that wish it harm.
All that we do in our common life as a nation is part of that struggle. The struggle for democracy is taking place around the world — democracy and autocracy. The struggle for decency and dignity — just simple decency. The struggle for posterity — prosperity and progress. And, yes, the struggle for the soul of America itself.
Folks, you all know it: Democracy thrives when the infrastructure of democracy is strong; when people have the right to vote freely and fairly and conveniently; when a free and independent press pursues the truth, founded on facts, not propaganda; when the rule of law applies equally and fairly to every citizen, regardless of where they come from or what they look like.
(Coughs.) Excuse me.
Wherever Americans are, there — there is democracy: churches and synagogues and mosques, neighborhoods and coffee shops and diners, bleachers at kids’ baseball or soccer games, libraries and parks. Democracy begins and grows in the open heart and the impetus to come together for a common cause.
And I might note, parenthetically: Thank you, TAPS. That’s what you do.
And that’s where it will be preserved. For empathy is the fuel of democracy. Let me say that again: Empathy — empathy is the fuel of democracy, a willingness to see each other — not as enemies, neighbors. Even when we disagree, to understand what the other is going through.
To state the obvious: Our democracy is imperfect. It always has been. But Americans of all backgrounds, races, creeds, gender identities, sexual orientations, have long spilled their blood to defend our democracy. The diversity of our country and our arm- — and of our armed services is and always has been an incredible strength.
And generation after generation of American heroes have signed up to be part of the fight because they understand the truth that lives in every American heart: that liberation, opportunity, justice are far more likely to come to pass in a democracy than an autocracy.
If every person is sacred, then every person’s rights are sacred. Individual dignity; individual worth; individual sanctity; the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We say those words so often, but think of it: the right to vote, the right to rise in a world as far as your talent can take you, unlimited by unfair barriers of privilege and power — such are the principles of democracy.
So how would you put these noble principles into practice? How do we do that? How do we make the idea real, or as close to real as we can make it?
This nation was built on an idea — the only nation in the world built on an idea. Every other nation was built on ethnicity, geography, religion, et cetera.
We were built on an idea: the idea of liberty and opportunity for all. We have never fully realized that aspiration of our founding, but every generation has opened the door a little wider, and every generation has opened it wider and wider to be more inclusive, to include those who have been excluded before. It’s a mission handed down generation to generation: the work of perfecting our union.
In 1830, when we were a young nation, dis-unionists put their sectional interests ahead of the common good. A great senator, Daniel Webster, rose in the Capitol to defend the Union. To him, we were not just a collection of competing forces, but a coherent whole.
His cry, first uttered just across the Potomac in the Capitol, resonates even now. He stood on the floor and he said, “Liberty and Union, now on forever, one and inseparable.” Liberty and Union.
More than 142 years later, when I first came to the United States Senate — at a time when our country was so deeply divided over Vietnam, the struggle of civil rights, the fight over women’s rights — I had the notion that my first task, as I stood to make my first speech on the floor of the Senate — it all of a sudden hit me: I’m standing where Daniel Webster had stood; his desk was next to mine.
And I was struck by the weight of history, as corny as it sounds, by the legacy of the work we’re charged to carry forward: liberty and union, now and forever.
Now as then, unity is essential to life; liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And so we remember those who gave their all in the cause of unity, in the cause of a nation that endures because of them.
We must honor their sacrifice by sustaining the best of America, while honestly confronting all that we must do to make our nation fuller, freer, and more just. We must remember that we may find the light and the wisdom and, yes, the courage to move forward — in the words of that great hymn, fight as they “nobly fought of old.”
For in remembrance lies not just our history, but our hope. Not just our solemn remembrance, but our renewed purpose. Not just our solace, but our strength.
This Memorial Day, remember that not all of us are called to make the ultimate sacrifice. We all are called, by God and by history and by conscience, to make our nation free and fair, just and strong, noble and whole.
To this battle, may we now dedicate our souls, that our work may prove worthy of the blood of our fallen. For this work — the work of democracy — is the work of our time, and for all time. And if we do our duty, then ages still to come will look back on us and say that we too kept the faith. And there’s nothing more important, nothing more sacred, nothing more American than keeping the faith. "
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I have noticed that most media critical of Trump have used the term "autocrat" to apply to him. He was voted out of office before he could in an effect be one, but he certainly had aspirations, expressed admiration of that kind of government style and had advocated and practiced some of what he could do at the time that resembled some of the characteristics.
https://www.8sa.net/10-characteristics-of-dictatorship/... have called him a wannabe dictator. Just making executive orders does not make a person a dictator so long as laws and the constitution are not violated. Executive orders can be easily reversed, unlike laws passed by Congress and apply to execution of details of by the executive branch. Biden has issued many executive orders, but most had to do with overturning Trump's executive orders and COVID relief and policy. I found this definition...of what is a dictator ..on line....that seems the clearest.
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