Letter to the Editor / RULE BY TWITTER

Roger C. Kostmayer

The 2016 election is over. The voice of the people, however, must not be stifled until the next election. It’s the consent of the people that bestows power in our democracy and enables public servants to implement solutions and retain their power. When a majority of the citizenry withholds its support and robustly rejects a politician or a policy, they are soon rendered impotent.

Today, our nation needs unity and reassertion of the principles that make our democratic experiment unique. These democratic values include protecting Constitutional freedoms in a nation of laws that provide equal opportunity for all.

But what should we do if the new administration, operating out of Trump Towers and golf resorts, tries to implement plans that were promised during the campaign that violate these values? What if the President bans religions, uses a registry (like the 1942 Japanese incarceration law) and military force to deport millions of immigrants and their families? Or refuses transparency, release of his taxes, disclosure of all foreign contacts, and won’t divest his assets or put them in a blind trust? And he refuses to protect our planet from global warming or our clean air and water? What if President Trump, as promised, destroys our historic NATO defense relationships and appeases dictators like Putin?

The answer is that Americans will do exactly what their patriotic forbears did in revolution, civil war, fighting slavery and world wars – they held culprits and their leaders accountable. They did, and will do, the right thing by raising their voices, powerfully coming together to demonstrate peacefully and demand justice, Constitutional fidelity and integrity from their public servants. If necessary, the legal remedy may be demands for impeachment proceedings.

All that is to say it may become our time to stand together for a government of, by and for all the people – until we get it.

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