Fearing harassment or violence against me or my family has kept me from writing about this for a long time. But now fear for our democracy is greater. So here goes.
Democracies are fragile. Their survival has many requirements including: honest news sources, office-seekers motivated by love of democracy not lust for power, politicians who have alternate policies not alternate facts and well-informed eligible voters freely able to cast their votes.
Voters must also be confident their votes were properly counted and that when all challenges were addressed, all sides peacefully accept the results and move on.
Those democracy requirements are now vanishing. In plain sight, certain politicians are taking radical steps to subvert our democracy. We the people must choose freely our elected officials not the other way around. If they succeed, this will end the grand American experiment.
I see only one defense for our democracy. There are tens of thousands of small and large groups in America, working hard on every important issue imaginable. Could each regularly discuss the situation? Could they stress the need to get out the vote? Could they work with other democracy-loving groups? A record high voter turnout this November is our only sure solution.
ADVERTISEMENT
Please, don’t let us go down in history as the generation who let our democracy slip away.
Edward Coen, Rochester
