The Rubicon has been crossed. But, this time the Senate has aided and abetted the man who would end democracy as we know it. I listened to the evidence presented at the impeachment hearings in the House, and to the abbreviated trial in the Senate, and it is as clear to me as it is to Senator Mitt Romney that Trump put his personal political desires above what was in this country’s best interest. If that is not treason to you, your standards of treason are very low. Trump tried to make the release of military and financial aid to the Ukraine, and a meeting with him by Ukrainian President Zelensky, dependent upon Zelensky announcing the investigation of Joe Biden and his son. If that is not bribery to you, your standards of bribery are very low.

Trump’s attorney, Alan M. Dershowitz, (you know, the guy who got O.J. Simpson off,) argued that if Trump did something to help his campaign (like spreading mud about Joe Biden) it wasn’t wrong because Trump felt that his re-election was in the country’s best interest. And 52 Republican Senators just seemed to agree with this bit of autocratic bovine feces. If Dershowitz’s argument isn’t the definition of an autocrat’s power, I don’t know what is.

I’ve learned to live with pain the last six months or so. My cancer is not active now, no new lesions have shown up, so I’m happy about that. But, the three vertebra that had been attacked developed compression fractures. The fractures were repaired with kyphoplasty, where the damaged tissue is removed and replaced by a type of cement. (See https://www.spine-health.com/treatment/back-surgery/description-kyphoplasty-surgery if you want more details.) Unfortunately my eighth thoracic vertebra is still out of alignment and causes me pain. Pain which I treat with a combination of opiates, ibuprofen, and naproxen. But all of that pain is insignificant next to the pain I feel in seeing my country loose its rule of law and thus its democracy.

Since the senate voted as expected, Trump has been crushing the rule of law. One of the witnesses of Trump’s crimes, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, has been summarily fired and marched out of the White House, along with his twin brother (who had nothing to do with the impeachment proceedings.) This, in spite of the clearly written rules against reprisals against whistle blowers and other witnesses. The so-called Attorney General, Bill Barr, Trump’s Consigliere, has tried to lower the prison sentence of Trump’s buddy Roger Stone. When a leader takes the law and bends it to protect his interests and his friends’ interest, and to punish his enemies, he becomes a dictator.  How can anyone with a brain not see this?

The evangelicals’ support of the larcenous, adulterous, fornicating con man is especially baffling. I’m more of a Christian than Donald Trump, and I am agnostic.  Perhaps it is their Idyll that outlawing abortions will reduce the number of abortions, when the evidence shows clearly that the abortion rate is just as high or higher in countries that outlaw abortion as in countries where it is legal. The countries with the highest abortion rates are in South and Central America, where the penalties are the harshest.

What can I do to stop this drift into an autocracy? I cannot join marches or canvass neighborhoods. I cannot drive because I use opiates. I can write. I can encourage all my readers who agree to share this with their friends and neighbors. Our democratic republic is in danger. It is slipping into a banana republic. We must protest. We must overwhelmingly vote out this wanna-be dictator.