America's Democracy is at Risk

Manny Becerra via Unsplash

I have loved my country through thick and thin ever since I was born in upstate New York in the middle of World War II. There were actual cautionary “blackouts” during the very week I was born in case Germany tried to bomb New York, much as they were doing in London.

The German bombings in London that were occurring then caused many young people who had recently “come of age” to flee their apartments in the middle of the night and flood the streets. Their fear was so great that they might not survive the night that they had spontaneous sex with anyone who would do so because of their fear of dying before they had ever experienced sexual relations.

It was Winston Churchill who famously orated to Englanders: “Never, never, ever give up!” Londoners would be in that war to the bitter end, regardless of the atrocities that might befall them, and Churchill’s orations sustained peoples’ courage at the bleakest of times.

America’s circumstances are highly different now with no active threats of bombs being dropped inside our country. But our democracy is nonetheless at risk because of the dictator-like leanings of one of the potential Presidential candidates this election year. It’s not Germans bombing people’s homes as in WWII, but it’s the loss of democratic governance that will be at risk if a man who fully intends to enact punishment on those who oppose him and to utilize the office of President for his own self-interest if he is, is reelected.

Of equal toxicity today to America’s democracy is excessive gun ownership and abuse due to our misconstrued second amendment. There are more guns owned currently by American citizens than the total number of people living in the United States. This excessive gun ownership, including automatic weapons which did not even exist when the Second Amendment was written, is based on that misconstrued Amendment that stresses the importance of “a well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and to bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The amendment does not state that anyone can own as many guns as they want, including automatic weapons which did not exist back then, but simply the importance of a “well-regulated militia” to protect our democracy. The consequence of this misconstrued amendment has led to countless mass shootings of innocent people including at schools and in entertainment venues, causing grief, mayhem and fear. This is not what the writers of the second amendment had in mind during our country’s infancy.

I love my country as one whose forebearers emigrated here to freedom in the late 1800’s from oppressed European areas. America has made many mistakes along the way, including the displacement of indigenous peoples, the egregious history of Black enslavement and segregation, the mistreatment of multiple other minority groups, and the misguided Vietnam War. But the election of a malignant sociopathic dictator-to-be in the coming election, as well as the excessive freedom to own guns, including automatic weapons, could lead to the downfall of our current democracy as we know it.

Personally, I feel too old to consider migrating to a new country if such realities were to co-exist, but I can appreciate those who might consider the idea of emigrating to a democratic, well-governed nation such as New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland, Canada, or some of the Nordic countries where the leadership is stable, and the accessibility of guns is well regulated.

Being active in this next election to protect our precious democracy could make irrelevant even having to think of leaving our precious homeland!

Dr. Hugh Winig is a retired psychiatrist, a longtime OLLI @Berkeley member and volunteer, and a regular contributor to the OLLI Blog.