We Fear For Our Democracy
“We fear for our democracy, I dissent.”
These were the closing words in the dissent against the Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity.
The decision was long awaited and was the last announcement before the Supreme Court took its Summer recess. The delay itself was already infuriating to millions of Americans because Trump’s trials were on hold until this decision was released. That delay has pushed Trump’s trials out past the election, meaning that America will not get to find out if he is guilty or innocent of his most extreme crimes before casting their ballots.
But now, there is something even more worrisome to consider when voting this November. The President is now above the law as long as an act can be regarded as an official act.
It may sound innocuous, but the definition and limits of what constitutes an official act are not clear or limited. Trump’s lawyer has said that it should be considered an official act to swap in fake electors who will vote for you to change the outcome of a fair and just election to allow yourself to stay in power. If that was deemed an official act, then a President couldn’t be prosecuted for stealing an election.
Another country operates this way: Russia. They have elections, but the outcome is decided in advance, and that outcome is that Putin will continue to hold power. Russia even changed its constitution to reset Putin’s time in office to allow him to exceed term limits. Trump has been posting images and videos that show him as President far into the future, past current presidential term limits.
Trump’s lawyer also argued before the Supreme Court that if a President were to use Seal Team Six to assassinate their political opponent, that too would be considered an official act.
Trump’s lawyers are now trying to get the ruling in the New York case regarding falsified business records overturned. While the hush money payment was made before the election and was paid through Michael Cohen, Trump’s fixer, to hide the payment, Trump didn’t reimburse Cohen until 2017, after he was President.
Trump’s lawyers are claiming that his texts made while in office about the hush money payments would be considered official acts of his job and, therefore, shouldn’t have been able to be used in the case, given the SCOTUS ruling on immunity. The Manhattan DA has agreed to delay sentencing while this is sorted out.
Trump avoids accountability yet again.
Whether it is apathy or simply avoiding facing the reality in front of us, many people still think the threats that Trump represents are overblown. But this is a former President who did everything he could to try and overturn an election that wasn’t in his favor, including telling an insurrectionist mob to go to the Capitol and fight like hell.
Trump has said he wants to be a dictator, wants to round people up into camps, is ok using the military against civilians, wants to seek revenge on his opponents, and even recently posted a picture on Truth Social which accused former member of Congress Liz Cheney of being guilty of Treason for heading up the Jan 6 commission and said that she should be subject to a televised military tribunal.
Trump has long admired other world dictators, praising their iron fists and keeping their populations in line. A team of politicians and administrators around Trump has written up Project 2025, which would give more power to the presidency while removing civil servants at all levels of government and replacing them with loyal Trump sycophants.
The goal is to recreate what Russia has. It is a nation that looks like a democracy from the outside but is actually an authoritarian regime that does anything and everything Trump wants while having him be immune to any recourse for his actions, including having no ability to prosecute him in a court of law.
There is no level of overreacting to this Supreme Court decision and the dangerous path forward it creates for America. Every Presidential election is now a question of which candidate won’t abuse their power to dismantle our democratic foundations, including our justice system. Every election has a chance to be our last real election before turning into the show elections held in Russia.
Never taking these threats seriously is how we’ve ended up here today. Mitch McConnell gamed the system to take over the Supreme Court. Trump seated extreme far-right justices. And now that the Supreme Court has given Presidents the power of being kings who cannot be challenged for anything considered an official act.
It is time to take this situation extremely seriously.
History is full of official acts that were atrocities. Dictators changed the laws and used them to cancel elections, round people up and hang them, place people in camps, and even commit a Holocaust.
November will decide the future of America. The stakes of the election could not be higher. Do not stay home; do not throw away your vote. Show up and vote to defend the democracy our forefathers built after they fought to gain their freedom from a king.