Editorial: Democracy works, if we work for it

Donald J. Trump was sworn in this week very peacefully. I look to four years prior and the opposite was true. To say otherwise would be to lie. These days, I wonder how much lying or searching for a lie plausible enough to believe that many people have been doing.

It is this searching for something, an idea, anything to grasp upon what any person’s situation calls for that they want to believe that has gotten us to where we are at now. It is the willingness for enough people to believe an idea simply because it sounds good to them, and to do so somewhat blindly without understanding the dynamics, importance, and full workings of the idea they are supporting.

A person cannot simply buy into any idea without questioning it to some extent. A person cannot simply buy into an idea because it sounds good to them and is reinforced by their family, friends, and coworkers. A person cannot simply buy into an idea because they feel shorted in some way in regard their personal situation and they feel that those ideas are their answer.

Democracy works by favoring a better life for all of its people. It works with some compromise so that the larger entity works better as a whole. This means things like rich people, who exponentially and disproportionately take the wealth of the country, must take those riches and give them to a common entity like our government and have them distributed amongst programs that have the capability to provide goods, services, and even monetary benefits to the least wealthy so that they may live a decent quality of life.

Democracy works best by all of its parties making truly educated decisions with the choices available to them, whether choosing a President or a local official, or simply voicing their opinion at a city council meeting. Educated decisions come from good information that isn’t constantly changing to fit an agenda/moment, viable information from a credible source, and/or from known facts or information that is easily verifiable.

Each person must vote for politicians that they think exemplify these trusted and true pieces of information and will work to promote legislation that they would like to see move forward.

I feel we have failed as a nation in this process severely. Many have bought into politicians who have viably shown, time and again, that they do not favor their own best interests nor their neighbors. I feel like many have chosen to simply believe in their own version of reality rather than real life.

Where these decisions come from could be misinformation from friends, neighbors, or other sources in which they choose to seek information. It could come from not seeking out news at all, being completely uneducated on the matter. For some, it might be just one or a few very key issues why they vote one way or another.

It’s pretty widely known that the Trump administration and many of the Republican Party have promoted the false notion of “fake news,” so people will stop listening to credible news sources.

What is most unfathomable to me though is that we are sitting here now with a President who is a convicted felon that will see no prison time or punishment for what he did. Even if he did, he can pardon himself and likely would have from his jail cell, if he had served any time. He has skirted other legal issues in the past by using lawyers and his position of authority to stop progress against him as well.

Is this what you really want as an example of leadership for the President of the United States? Is this what you would want for an example in your local political office?

This is what we have come to as a democracy, putting enough votes forward to say, “I want Donald J. Trump as my President.” For me, this is a huge step back in our society. His inauguration is peaceful but sorrowful for me.

I’ve never wanted a President who cares so little for who it is he is supposed to represent, that makes fun of a person with a disability, that grabs women by their private parts, that was on flight logs of Jeffery Epstein’s plane, that wants to do away with credible media, that spreads lies about Haitian immigrants eating cats and dogs, that wants research to disappear to so the data isn’t there to go against billionaire buddies’ agendas; that cannot fathom he lost an election, takes measures to overturn the results of the people, and pardons those who committed crimes in response to his requests for storming the U.S. Capitol; and that would reinforce knowingly false ideas over and over to you. Those are just some of the points. It’s not sane. It’s not healthy. It’s not good for this country.

It is in believing in these falsehoods and dismissing the track record of such a person that democracy can fail. It’s how we vote against ourselves. I don’t believe that most people out there are wishing ill upon me or themselves, but I feel that is what it has invited for all of us with the deciding votes of our country.

I hope that better will prevail, but better isn’t what becomes of sitting idle. We all must continue to actively educate ourselves, challenge our own knowledge, make an active choice to vote appropriately off of that information, and be willing to compromise and try and understand other people’s points of view in order for better to prevail. As well, we can’t keep dismissing a questionable source or questionable decisions. We also need to trust good science and good information. I feel we can do better than where we have voted ourselves into.

Work to do better, and see more objectively next time. This is all I ask of you.

If we share different opinions, I can live with that. Do not let us live in a different idea of reality because you didn’t care to believe or seek out viable facts and information.