Uncle Sam Wants You To Save Democracy - Vote!

Even If You Have to Hold Your Nose When You Do It.

As a kid growing up in Adel, Iowa, my daily adventures used to frequently take me past the beautiful Dallas County Courthouse - modeled on a French castle, we’re always proud to note. High school band concerts happened there each Summer. Community celebrations and ice cream socials often took place there. We played many touch football games on its expansive lawn. Successful Little League baseball teams had the honor of posing proudly on its impressive steps for end of season team photos.

In high school and college, as I was launching my career as a cub reporter at the local newspaper, I became a regular visitor to the courthouse - someone with actual business to conduct there. I stopped in several times a week to visit with local county elected officials about the work they were doing. I looked through official records, discovering stories and taking notes. I covered the periodic press conferences the County Supervisors conducted

My strongest memories of the courthouse from those days, however, are none of those things. My strongest memories of the courthouse are these:

1. The somber, black and white memorials on the wall in the front entry hall, honoring the county’s fallen military heroes who gave their lives defending our country, freedom and democracy in World War II.

2. And the full color metal sign, swinging in the breeze from its metal rack on the courthouse lawn, featuring a very grave looking Uncle Sam, urgently wagging his finger at - well, at me, it seemed - with the slogan “Uncle Sam Wants You! - For the US Army.”

Even when I was too young to actually enlist in the Army, I always felt guilty when I walked past that sign on the lawn and those memorials on the wall, without enlisting right then and there. That’s how important, urgent and compelling it all seemed back then.

Today, our country - Uncle Sam - has reached an even greater moment of urgency. This time the threat comes from within.

Our country, our freedom , and our democracy are under attack. This is not hyperbole. I have either covered politics and government, or been involved in politics and government for more than 50 years. I have never seen anything like the threat our democracy faces today.

The day to step up and do your part to save it is on Election Day, November 8. Or before, if you are voting early.

What follows is not calculated, partisan rhetoric. It is, to this former reporter’s eye, unvarnished fact:

The Republican Party, under the toxic, malignant “leadership” of the twice impeached Donald Trump has gone full fascist.

It is not your Grandpa’s or Grandma’s Republican Party. It’s not even the party you joined even if you first did so just a few years ago.

We used to calm ourselves by dismissing the danger of fascism as just something coming from Trump. We can no longer do that.

Look at the opinion polls that tell us what Republicans now stand for and believe. Two thirds of them believe President Joe Biden was not elected President, despite the fact that virtually every court, and other government body - Republican, Democratic, and bi-partisan - that looked at their phony claims concluded, of course, that the election was free, fair and conducted lawfully.

Look at the candidates Republicans are fielding. Hundreds of election deniers are on Republican ballots this year. Some of them even took part in the January 6 insurrection that tried to overthrow a democratic election.

Look at the lies they tell every single day, not because they believe them, but as a matter of sick political strategy.

Look at their easy comfort with political violence. Many can’t bring themselves to speak ill of the January 6 insurrection, even those who did on January 6.

An 82 year old man who happens to be married to the Democratic Speaker of the US House was just days ago beaten over the head with a hammer and nearly killed because the attacker hated his wife - because to be a good Republican these days it is apparently necessary to hate everyone whose politics or ideology are different than their own.

That beating for some Republican Party leaders is simply an occasion for laughter and mirth.

This from a party that advertises itself as one that stands for Christian values. Really? Is their operative question now “Who would Jesus beat over the head with a hammer?”

Trump’s malignancy has metastasized and has spread throughout the party.

They are all in on the Big Lie about the 2020 election outcome. Their party leaders know it is a lie, and a big one. But they continue to tell it anyway because they think there are votes and campaign cash in it for them. Sadly, they are right.

The violent insurrection of January 6, 2021?

It’s not a “Day of Infamy” for most Republicans. It was a deliberate attack on our democracy to overthrow an election with a result they didn’t like, and it is now considered simply a dress rehearsal for the 2024 election if voters should reject them again. They are working in this election to stock a team for next time with ready and willing election thieves, who will do what law abiding Republicans of real patriotism and character wouldn’t do last time.

I’m pretty sure that’s not the kind of democracy or America those fellows whose names are on the courthouse wall memorials fought and died to preserve.

Nor is it what Uncle Sam on the sign on the courthouse lawn had in mind when he pointed at me and anybody else who saw him, and said he needed us to help defend democracy.

Elections are almost always complicated things. People take their own perspectives, issue concerns, and priorities into voting booths across America every Election Day. There are a thousand different reasons that can be argued for voting one way or another in this election just as there are in every election.

But this election is very different. This election, one issue clearly outweighs all the rest.

Will our democracy survive. Will our campaigns and elections still matter? Will our elected officials be selected not by our ballots but through lies and violence?

Simply put: Can today’s Republican Party be trusted to preserve our democracy?

The answer is no.

Today’s Republican Party has shown us exactly who they are. They have shown us - without question - that they are not democracy’s friend.

We should believe them.

I’ll leave it to the historians and political scientists - maybe even the courts - to determine how they got here. But here they are, indeed.

Some of my Republican friends tell me that, of course, they don’t really like Trump. They don’t even like what their party has become these days - but you know? - what are you going to do?

I’ll tell you what they can do. They can defend their country. They can save our democracy while they still can - with their vote. Never forget - fascism is a lot easier to stop than it is to displace once it is already in place.

America’s battle against fascism is no longer “over there.” It is right here. Uncle Sam needs you - regardless of your party - as urgently today as he did when troop ships were loading up and sailing to Europe in the 1940s.

Do your part.

My Republican friends, even if you have to hold your nose and vote for candidates of a party for which you have never voted in your life - vote for Democrats now. Across the board.

Take a firehose to this crop of election-denying, violent, Big Lie promoting fascists and fraudsters who now control your party and clear the decks of them on Election Day.

Our democracy is on the line.