The stakes in November could not be higher

The great American jurist, Louis Brandeis, once said, “We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.” In 2024, it might be just as relevant to say, “We may have democracy or we may have Donald Trump, but we cannot have both.” “We must choose,” Brandeis said.

As the clock winds down on campaign 2024, the former, and perhaps future, chief executive has stepped over the edge into territory never before occupied by a major party candidate for president, and it’s not even close. Asked about the possibility of Democrats and Republicans working together to advance the public interest, Trump told Fox News host Harris Faulkner such was not in the cards. “They are very different,” Trump explained of Democrats.



“And it is the enemy within, and they are very dangerous. They are Marxists and communists and fascists.” To Maria Bartiromo, Trump referenced the likes of ex-House speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“These people, they’re sick,” he said, “and they’re so evil. ..

. They’re the threat to democracy.” “We have two enemies,” Trump insisted.

“We have the outside enemy. And then we have the enemy from within. And the enemy from within, in my opinion, is more dangerous than China, Russia, and all these countries.

” “We have some very bad people,” Trump said. “We have some very sick people, radical-left lunatics. And I think they’re the – and it should be very easily handled by – if necessary, by the National Guard or, if it is really necessary, by the military, because we can’t let that happen.

” Never in our history has a would-be commander-in-chief spoken in such vicious and spiteful ways about the opposition party and its leaders, for instance, calling Rep. Adam Schiff of California, a candidate for the Senate, “a total sleaze..

..” It seems clear that the former president hopes to be swept into office by stoking fear and division on an unprecedented scale.

His net of “enemies from within” is a rubber-band type contraption, capable of ensnaring everyone from the least offensive legal Haitian immigrant to Gen. Mark Milley, the retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As president, Trump threatened Gen.

Stanley McChrystal, the former commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, and Admiral William McRaven, the special forces commander who oversaw the successful operation to kill or capture Osama bin Laden, with a return to active duty for remarks critical of the president.

He wanted to court-martial the retired four-stars. As recounted in his latest book, “War,” Bob Woodward reports that Milley and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper slipped the noose from around their necks while “narrowly” defending the free-speech rights of the two mustered-out commanders. “You are losers!” Trump screamed at Milley and Esper at one point.

“You are [expletive] losers!” Woodward reveals in “War” that Milley buttonholed him in March 2023 to report fresh fears about Trump, in the event the 45th president should become the 47th. As a general proposition, Milley said of Trump, “No one has ever been as dangerous to this country. He is the most dangerous ever.

” At one point the retired general thought Trump was losing his grip on reality, but now he told Woodward that he wagered Trump was purposeful, a “fascist to the core. A total fascist.” Recently on CNN, Esper, a Uniontown native who was fired by Trump from his Pentagon post days after the 2020 election, said Trump should be taken seriously when he talks about using the military against Americans.

Why? “Because I lived through that,” Esper explained, “and saw over the summer of 2020 when the president ...

wanted to use the National Guard in various capacities in cities such as Chicago and Portland and Seattle.” The barriers that forestalled action then won’t be in place in a second Trump administration, Esper warned. “I think loyalty” – not competence or faithfulness to the Constitution – “will be the first litmus test,” he said.

The choice facing voters in November could not be more stark. Regardless how unpalatable the Democrat for president may be to a wide swath of Republicans, a vote for her is the one thing that stands between America the beautiful and widespread Constitutional disorder. Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown.

He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.

com..