America is becoming unrecognizable

Nov 09, 2020 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
The year 2020 is one for the history books. We have all looked on as world changing scenarios unfolded—a horrible disease epidemic that quickly spread throughout the world, calamitous economic consequences as nation after nation plummeted into shutdowns to prevent the coronavirus spread, a worldwide travel collapse as many countries went into quarantines, and massive government intrusion into citizens’ lives.
Millions of people were basically sentenced to home confinement, prisoners released from jail seemingly to prevent the spread of COVID-19, and hordes of people rampaged through the streets of America, looting and burning. And this is far from over.
Elections were held on November 3 to determine the nation’s future. Even in the capacity of former legal U.S. resident, I do not endorse any political party, but I do feel impelled to address the reality. The stakes are high because what is at play is the survival of the nation as we know it. Over the years we have seen tipping points where political parties secured enough leverage to exert control over everything within their power. We have seen it in America’s big cities and states which are overwhelmingly dominated by one political party. There the career politicians have been able to implement their platforms, policies and goals freely.
In recent months, there have been radical ideas projected by the leadership of one of the major political parties. On July 5, one of the presidential candidates tweeted that if his party wins the presidency, “We won’t just rebuild this nation—we’ll transform it”.
He failed to say how that transformation would take place or what they would transform the nation into. That is why the proposals presented by other party leaders are important. They reveal the change that they want to accomplish if they gain control of the presidency and Congress.
Their list of proposals reveals a well-thought out plan for permanently changing government and a transformation of American society into something enormously different. Among the steps that have been openly presented are:
The abolition of the U.S. senate filibuster rules that require a 60 percent vote for major legislations or decisions. Such a move would abolish more than 200 years of history and tradition of cooperation and deliberation before making significant changes. Once such rules are abolished the party would then be free to:
· Grant statehood to the district of Columbia and Puerto Rico- giving this party a total of four more reliably liberal senators, and additional liberal members of the House of Representatives.
· Extend the present nine-member Supreme Court to 15 or more and fill those seats with liberal activist judges who make law rather than interpret law.
This would in turn make the Supreme Court more left leaning ability and give them an unstoppable ability to create new law through judicial proclamation instead of working through the constitutionally mandated requirement that Congress make laws.
With moves such as these and others in place, the America that we know would no longer exist.
Additionally, in the name of social justice and resisting systemic racism America has been thrown into a period of upheaval that is the biggest threat to social cohesion in the last half century.
Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States and widely regarded as one of the greatest presidents in U.S. history was also a student of history and understood the danger that can come from within. Long before the opening volleys of the Civil War, he uttered these apocalyptic words: “At what point shall we expect the approach of danger?… If it ever reaches us, it must spring up among us… If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and its finisher. As a nation of freedmen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
Presently America is split into White and Black, coastal America and middle America. Trump has widened another divide — that between the big cities, which are predominantly Democrat, and rural and small-town America, which has plumped for him.
The ground is slowly shifting under America’s feet, as she remains on a highly dangerous trajectory – not just due to the months long worry about COVID-19, but also over the direction of the nation and people’s own personal safety, America is becoming unrecognizable.
Yvonne Sam

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