Only WE can save our democracy

“The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution.

“Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.

“Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority’s message today.

“Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.

“With fear for our democracy, I dissent.”

-Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor after Monday’s devastating, anti-American ruling giving presidents immunity from prosecution for their official actions in office

Good day, my friends. I’d respectfully like you to read that again, because it is very possibly the most powerful and chilling dissent ever written by any Supreme Court Justice about anything.

“With fear for our democracy, I dissent,”

My God …

Monday was not a day to brush off, and casually forget. Monday, July 1, 2024, was the date it was confirmed to us, but three days before our wounded nation’s 248th birthday, that the end of our Democracy has arrived at our homes with a thunderclap.

Every one of us is under threat by a ruthless collection of six terrible lawyers, who have been handsomely rewarded by America’s oligarchy to do their dirty bidding and strip the citizens of this nation of the right to govern themselves with their vote.

These soulless, corrupt “justices” are backed by a sickly political party that came within a hair of incinerating our Democracy on January 6, 2021, and will not stop until they have built an authoritarian government in this country that acts on its horrible impulse and whims, instead of the desires and needs of the majority of this nation’s citizens.

These robed deviants have taken over the most powerful court in the world and proven they will stop at nothing to install a heinous, sick, lying king into our White House, who has proven beyond a shadow of any doubt that he will do any and all of the terrible things Sotomayor warned us about on Monday.

The end is here, good people, and we are but one election away from stamping that as official.

Look, I am not turning around this piece today to bum you out, or bring you down. If you aren’t there already, I both envy and pity you.

I am also not here to surrender any fights and crawl into a corner. I’m not built that way. In fact, I am oddly interested to see just how much strength I have left in the tank, and what I am capable of doing to preserve a Democracy I served to protect as a young man in the Navy who loved his country, but wasn’t yet mature enough to understand just how many people in it would toss her aside for an ugly conman.

I plan to show up every-damn-day until November 5 to do my part. Democracy will not go down without a fight as long as I still breathe …

I am here to tell you, though, that I haven’t felt this low since the breathtaking blast on November 8, 2016, that set this slow-rolling disaster in place. I needn't tell most of you how terrible that day was, when it was confirmed just how vulnerable all of us are to the evil that gathers strength in the shadows of this powerful, combustible country.

I finally realized on that terrible day that this was never news to the People of Color in this nation, who have always been under threat. But it was a new experience for this old, white man, who needed to be properly slapped across the face, to swing into action and begin doing everything possible to put down the selfish desires of the heartless maniacs who believe they have a right to their boundless bigotry, misogyny, and ill-gained power.

We have won significant battles since that November blast, despite long odds stacked higher by our ridiculous, anti-Democratic Electoral College, and gross Republican gerrymandering.

The House, the Senate and the Presidency have all been ours at one point during these past seven, grueling years. I believe our resistance to Republican fascism has been heroic, but we’ve never had time to exhale and celebrate our victories, because the Republican attacks have been relentless.

Dammit, on the day after we had FINALLY secured the Senate by winning both races in Georgia in 2021, the odious Republicans violently attacked our country and tried to overturn the election.

For the first time in history, there was no peaceful transfer of power.

Now we are staring down the barrel of the end, and instead of unifying as patriots to once again do everything humanly possible to save this country, we are skirmishing with one another.

Our panic and dread is understandable, but it can also be incredibly useful. We need only look at our response to November 8, 2016, to see ample proof of that.

There are more of us, and when we coalesce and fight as one, we can’t be stopped.

We are literally the only ones with the power to save our Democracy.

Can you please tell me how-in-the-hell THAT doesn't fire you up?

Listen to me: Joe Biden will be our candidate for president just as sure as I am typing this, because he won every primary he ran in BIG. He was virtually uncontested, because anybody who might have considered jumping in to replace him knew in their hearts this was no time for a Plan B or for them.

There will be no contested convention because as 1968 and 1980 showed us, they have proven to be nothing but self-defeating bloodbaths. Besides, it is exactly what these barbaric Republicans want. They drool seeing us at odds with each other.

Joe Biden won once, and he simply has to again.

The good news is, I am here to tell you he will carry the day if we can just quit bloodying each other, stand together and consider these chilling words of Justice Sotomayor each and every day we roll out of the rack:

“Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.

“With fear for our democracy, I dissent.”

If you want to a elect a president and not a king …

If you want a Democracy and not fasiscm …

If you want your vote to count in every election going forward …

… Then let’s unify and go to work. We owe it to ourselves, and our country.

And to ANYBODY pushing for fascist rulers in our country, well, let THEM be met by our fiery dissent.

NOW READ: Sonia Sotomayor: Supreme Court just gave presidents power to assassinate political rivals

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. Follow @EarlofEnough and on his website.