Do you like your freedom in America? What are you going to do to keep it?

In 2003 50% of the citizens of the world lived under the domination of tyrants in autocracies. In 2023 the percent had risen to 71%. This according not to me but the Economist magazine.

Does that dismal fact matter? Yes, and especially so with almost every Republican in an important elected position still denying Donald Trump lost the presidency in 2020 and more recently saying the 34 felony convictions handed down in New York City were unjustified – rigged, to be exact – and simply a plot by the Joe Biden Administration.

I've written about the fallacies in that argument in another recent post. The short version to be found here: that is bullshit.

In my headline above I posited the question about liking freedom and I am reminded about members of the Greatest Generation, those men and women who defended our freedom and that of millions of others during the greatest and worst World War in history. For example, June 6 is just around the corner and it marks the 80th anniversary of D-Day 1944 when hundreds of thousands of Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy, France, including two 300-yard sections named Omaha and Utah. Twenty-five hundred young Americans died that day, on those beaches, which marked the beginning of the defeat of fascist Germany.

Speaking of that ugly word – fascism – one candidate for president of these United States this year continues to treat that identifier as though it is just another word, no more meaningful than adjectives like bad, ugly or harmful but it is so much more. Fascism was the form of government that killed over six million Jews, invaded every European country and Russia in the name of a 1,000-year Reich. It lasted 12 and culminated in Germany's defeat only after the deaths of 20 million people worldwide, the majority of whom were civilians.

Of course, Donald Trump is the fool that equates Joe Biden's Administration with racism and sadly millions of Americans, like lemmings into the sea, follow his utterances as though they are similar in worth and truth to the tablets delivered by Moses in biblical times.

A tiny percentage of the 15 million Americans who wore the uniforms of our country during World War II are still alive. They know first-hand what fascism meant, the killing machine it was and the destructive blows it delivered to so many for the murderous dozen years it dominated much of the world. Ask them this coming June 6 what so many of their comrades died for 80 years ago, on Normandy Beach and I'll bet none will say so that a demented demagogue, historically illiterate egomaniac and blustery blabbermouth like Donald John Trump could regularly lie and mislead his fellow Americans. But in effect those men died on those bloody beaches so that even draft-dodgers like the former president could do just that under the protections of our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

It's called democracy, and because it is so hard to maintain, to hold, to treasure, to defend and protect, the percentage of humans who enjoy its benefits continues to decline.

If it was easy any peoples, in any country, would do so. Because it is so hard to have, to share, to love only those citizens willing to defend it at any cost still retain it.

Free elections are at the centerpiece of this thing we call democracy and any acquiescence to those who offer an easier form of governance are opting for only fool's gold ... shiny, simple and worthless.

That is what Trump offers to us today as a former president but now, like about two million other Americans, he also is identified as a felon,

the first and only leader of the free world so tarred.

Fool us once, on him. Fool us twice ... on you, me and any other voter who insanely would return him to not just the presidency of the United States but, frankly, any position of power and authority.

Donald John Trump has abundantly, regularly and without regard for anybody except himself proven he cannot handle the truth about his election loss in 2020.