Pick One: [ ] Monarchy [ ] Democracy

 Here is, perhaps, the clearest difference in the worldviews driving US elections in 2024.

On one hand, this from President Biden:

“Hitler and those with him thought democracies were weak, that the future belonged to dictators...”

— President Joe Biden, in a speech commemorating D-Day, June 06, 2024.

On the other hand, this from former Trump White House Chief of Staff John Kelly:

“My theory on why [Donald Trump] likes the dictators so much is that’s who he is [....] Every incoming president is shocked that they actually have so little power without going to the Congress, which is a good thing. It’s Civics 101, separation of powers, three equal branches of government. But in his case, he was shocked that he didn’t have dictatorial-type powers to send US forces places or to move money around within the budget. And he looked at Putin and Xi and that nutcase in North Korea as people who were like him in terms of being a tough guy.

[....]

“He would ask about the loyalty issues and about how, when I pointed out to him the German generals as a group were not loyal to [Hitler], and in fact tried to assassinate him a few times, and he didn’t know that. [....] He truly believed, when he brought us generals in, that we would be loyal — that we would do anything he wanted us to do."

— Retired general and former Trump Chief of Staff John Kelly, to CNN's Jim Sciutto, reported March 12, 2024

Pick One: [ ] Monarchy [ ] Democracy

Have you reviewed, lately, the complaints against the dictator, King George, in the Declaration of Independence? [https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript]

Forming a democracy — the rule of the people — in place of a monarchy — the rule of one — is the very thing that got this nation up and running in 1776. 

Are we about to decide that Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Adams, Franklin, Gwinnett, Rutledge, Chase, Witherspoon, Bartlett, and the rest were wrong about dictators? Do we imagine they were only mad at George, king by divine right, etc, and not the whole lot of dictators who claim, and somehow persuade others to believe, that they alone are fit to govern?

Are we about to throw in the towel on American democracy just shy of 250 years into getting it right because, on the word of a pretentious grifter, whose almost comically accidental elevation to the presidency we heartily regretted and immediately took back in the next election, we've finally come to our senses and decided Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt, and the Declaration of Independence, and the US Constitution were flat out wrong? ... Because we now think Putin, Chi, Orban, Duterte, Erdogan, Mussolini, and Hitler (and the grifter himself, of course) are right?

[Have we lost our damn minds?]

I don't think so. I think we went a little wobbly for a minute and it cost us ... but not as wobbly as 1861, when we literally broke up and proceeded to kill 620,000 neighbors over whether any state should have the privilege of enslaving other human beings for profit and power. Not that crazy.  

I think we've allowed some stupid stuff, and I think we have to be clearer about what we mean by forming "a more perfect Union, establishing Justice, insuring domestic Tranquility, providing for the common defence, promoting the general Welfare, and securing the Blessing of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity."

I think a supermajority of Americans see how far we've come — from the Declaration of Independence ... to the wartime Articles of Confederation ... to the US Constitution ... to the Constitution as amended.

I think we are awake — or are waking up — to the need for a renewed public discourse in the months just ahead, leading to a convincing display of democratic will at our ballot boxes in November to affirm that democracy really is better than dictatorship (by whatever name), and not just better but more sustainable, and more coherent with who we've said we are on our shared path to that more perfect Union.

Clearly, we're not there yet. And, clearly, we're not turning back. 

If you think I'm wrong about that, I'd be curious to know if you'd be willing to talk about it.