American democracy: Is it worth preserving?

By Alexander Markovsky, AM THINKER

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin said that if the nation’s voters give former President Donald Trump another term in the White House, “he will destroy democracy in America.” There are many Democrats and Republicans who share this opinion. Be that as it may, the pertinent question is whether this democracy, under the leadership of a demented man and marred by incompetence and corruption, is worth preserving.

Over the last few decades, our institutions—marriage, religion, the free-market economy, the judicial system, and the reliance on individual liberty—have been emasculated as outmoded, unfair, and discriminatory. These changes have destabilized the pillars of our constitutional system.

American political parties have undergone ideological restructuring, as well. In the past, despite ideological differences over a broad range of issues, including the role of government and various social concerns, the members of the two parties still shared the same ideals and aspirations: self-reliance, belief in a free-market economy, and dedication to the democratic process. Therefore, they could work out their disagreements and get important legislation passed. President Nixon summarized it in reference to John F. Kennedy, “We agreed on our goals, but we disagreed on the means.”

That is no longer the postulate of what once was a distinct form of democracy. In recent decades, the Democrat party adopted Marxism, meaning the Democrats no longer offer a different philosophy for achieving the same objectives. For years, they have had a different philosophy and have pursued objectives contrary to America’s historical values and the core tenets of American idealism.

Conservatism, the professed ideology of the Republican Party, which advocates limited government, fiscal restraint, self-reliance, and individual liberty, has not been practiced since Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Ironically, its most consistent rejection since than has been from within the Republican Party. Consequently, elections have boiled down to rival lists of promises that neither party takes seriously.

A pivotal role in reshaping the country’s legacy belongs to former President Barack Obama. Even after his tenure, his vision of a fundamental transformation of America continued unabated. The country embarked on rewriting and reinterpreting the nation’s history and revising the values once held dear. The Constitution, originally crafted to safeguard and empower “we the people,” has been repurposed into a tool for governmental oppression.

The founders of this nation have been condemned, and their monuments have been demolished or defaced. To that end, we have opened old wounds and undermined the foundation of our unity by dismantling memorials honoring the heroes of the Confederacy, which were erected as symbols of reconciliation after the bloody Civil War.

A poignant illustration of the epochal shift in our democracy is the order removing revered Founding Father Alexander Hamilton from the Capitol Rotunda. Meanwhile, Newark, New Jersey, installed a golden statue honoring a habitual criminal, George Floyd.

Our government is weaponizing law enforcement to prosecute political opponents, suppressing free speech, wiping away the country’s sovereignty by having open borders, and offering suffrage to illegal aliens. American cities look like garbage dumps plagued by the presence of drugs and escalating crime rates. Deeply in debt and entrenched in a perpetual state of war for the last three decades, this nation is unraveling from within.

Our covenants are broken, and our cherished values and historical heritage are under assault and crumbling. America’s polarization is at levels not seen since the Civil War. The cornerstone of our democracy—free and fair elections—has been brutally tarnished and is an illusion to millions of citizens. The beacon of liberty is dimming.

Indeed, is there anything left of our democracy that needs to be “jealously guarded and courageously defended?” Therefore, the issue is not whether Trump may destroy democracy in America; the tragedy is that he is trying to save the country that no longer exists.

Alexander G. Markovsky is a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research, a think tank that examines national security, energy, risk analysis, and other public policy issues. He is the author of Anatomy of a Bolshevik and Liberal Bolshevism: America Did Not Defeat Communism, She Adopted It. Mr. Markovsky is the owner and CEO of Litwin Management Services, LLC. He can be reached at alexander.g.markovsky@gmai.com

December 3, 2023 | 19 Comments »

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19 Comments / 19 Comments

  1. Is American Democracy worth preserving? If we actually had democracy, I would enthusiastically say, ‘Yes, it is worth preserving’, but we really don’t have ‘democracy’ anymore. All that’s left is an overused word and the pretense. To borrow a term from Shmuel 1, we can only say, “Ichabod”.

    Recall the words of John Adams:

    Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

    Our Constitution could define and guarantee our democracy, if we were a moral and a religious people. In our current state, however, we are neither able to rightly apply democracy, nor are we worthy of it.

  2. Democracy is messy and evolves. US democracy is certainly worth preserving but needs improvement of a serious nature.

    How it will evolve I do not know because I do not have a fortune teller’s license, as they are only issued by Democrats and they will not issue me such a license as I am a Jewish Zionist.

  3. @Ted, a differing legal opinion than the one you expressed is below. Which by precedent is what has always occurred in the USA. So rationalizations trying to make Pence look bad are basically creative legal mumbo jumbo. Pence a man of principle, adhered to USA law and precedent.

    “He is there to open and announce the Electoral College votes from each state and to ask if there are objections,” said Joshua Douglas, a law professor at the University of Kentucky and author of “Vote for US: How to Take Back our Elections and Change the Future of Voting.” “That’s all. He doesn’t have any legal authority to reject votes from a state or do anything else beyond his administrative duties to open the votes and announce the winner.”

    https://cbsaustin.com/he-doesnt-have-any-legal-authority-experts-say-pences-role-in-vote-count-limited

  4. Until such time as there is a court decision determining the matter, there is room for different opinions as to what it means. I remember reading a legal opinion that said Pence had the right or power to do what Trump asked him to do.. So Pence chose to screw Trump and jump ship. He should have given him the benefit of the doubt.
    https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-does-mike-pence-have-power-decide-which-electors-votes-count-1558163

    “According to Politico, the lawsuit claims that the Electoral Count Act, which laid out how the electoral vote counting process has worked since 1887, is unconstitutional and that the 12th Amendment gives Pence “exclusive authority and sole discretion to open and permit the counting of the electoral votes for a given state, and where there are competing slates of electors, or where there is objection to any single slate of electors, to determine which electors’ votes, or whether none, shall be counted.”

    If this language is accurate, Pence would be able to decide which electoral votes count and which do not, including the key swing states that led to Biden’s victory.”

  5. @Peloni, I was making a comment based on my belief and was not responding to your comments. In fact you will notice I did not direct my comment to you.

    We have different view points on these type of issues and frankly I do not read your comments with much interest, if at all. I anticipate on these type of issues we are likely to disagree and that is perfectly okay with me. As I have said many times you have your world view and I have mine which differs in many cases but not all. We both want best for Israel. That is what we have in common.

  6. @Bear

    He was loyal to Trump until Trump asked him to violate his allegiance to the Constitution of the United States, as he correctly perceived it.

    This avoids the point I addressed even as it is not actually true.

    ” Pence said. “President Trump demanded that I use my authority as vice president presiding over the count of the Electoral College to essentially overturn the election by returning or literally rejecting votes. I had no authority to do that.”

    An accurate quote by Pence falsifying anything Trump or anyone wanted him to do. This statement, made on Jan 6 after his long quiet on the issue was specifically intended to exacerbate the issue by mischaracterizing everything which Trump had said. If for no other reason, this would disqualify this scoundrel from being titled as ‘a man of principle’. Then there is the issue that his decision to do exactly as he did was well known to the govt assets which False Flagged Biden and his unrepresentative election victory into totalitarianizing the American people. His political career is over, and his influence with all but the most deceived is null, but where he should be is in the dock for having committed treason in coordinating an attack on the govt rather than those people who have been imprisoned in his stead. A truly foul and evil man, devoid of every principle and capable of every treachery.

  7. Pence loyalty is to the kingdom and not the king. He swore an allegiance to the Constitution of the United States. He was loyal to Trump until Trump asked him to violate his allegiance to the Constitution of the United States, as he correctly perceived it.

    Pence is a man of principle. He is now politically neutered because of his strong principles and refusal to dishonor them.

    ” Pence said. “President Trump demanded that I use my authority as vice president presiding over the count of the Electoral College to essentially overturn the election by returning or literally rejecting votes. I had no authority to do that.”
    https://www.factcheck.org/2023/08/what-trump-asked-of-pence/

  8. @Laura

    You sound like Qanon.

    There is no Qanon. There is Q and there are Anons. I am neither, but this much is well known to me.

    In a similar tone to your accusation, I guess I could say you sound like a RINO or a Neocon, but really how would you being a neocon be relevant to the facts indicating Pence’s January 6 betrayal. So let us not abuse each other, which serves no point, but rather discuss what we are discussing.

    Sadly, Pence was a great disappointment to me. I had followed his career since he was a young congressmen and was always quite impressed with him, and well disappointed when he left the congress some twenty years ago. So, when Trump picked him for VP, I was quite jubilant. When word came down that he had conspired with Rosenstein to possibly use the 25th Amendment against Trump, I was quite defiantly dismissive of the reports. I was equally dismissive of other scuttlebutt which came out including him being behind many of Trump’s most egregious mistakes in White House staffing. Yet when Jan. 6 came about, it was beyond my ability to dismiss the role which Pence played in the coordinated attack on the capital that day.

    Indeed, it was unknown to us all how Pence would act that day, yet it had to be known to the govt operatives which were collected in preparation of the coordinated attack on January 6. Indeed, many of the govt assets were assembled weeks before Pence’s announcement, and yet they were all present and awaiting Pence’s statement, not even waiting for Trump’s speech to end before they launched their attack. Now, you may believe that ony ‘Qanon’ which is really Q and Anons believe the January 6 attack was a govt operation, and if that is so, after all that has been revealed, well, it would at a minimum be greatly disappointing, regardless of whether you should be counted as a Neocon or not.

    January 6 was a clearly a false flag operation which required an unannounced provocation under which to launch the Jan 6 faux attack which was also coordinated with the Capital Police stand down, and that unannounced provocation was Pence’s betrayal to his party as Edgar well describes without need for further comment. Yet the betrayal of party is what the Reps are really well practiced at performing, with the best example prior to Jan 6 being Lindsey Graham’s fake claim that ‘We’re going to get to the bottom of this’ where this is any number of abuses of the govt which he himself purposefully failed to even scratch the surface. But Pence’s Jan 6 decision to betray his party and his voters was the info which was needed by the govt assets to False Flag Biden into office, and it needed to be known weeks before when the attack was first planned so that the various staged actors could be present and act to overthrow the nation that day.

    Indeed, had Pence failed to support the call to reject the electors, the assembled false flag actors would have had no pretext of provocation to attack the Capital that day, and yet they were all assembled, with equipment both on their person and awaiting them at the Capital Building. Notably, False Flags are well rehearsed and do not rely upon spontaneous revelations as took place on Jan 6 with Pence’s abrupt decision to refuse to send the electors back to the states.

    There have been many betrayals to the US, but the coordination by Pence in withholding his Jan 6 decision was the greatest betrayal of all. Indeed, if he had been decided upon that decision early enough for the False Flag actors to act upon his decision, he owed it to his president and his supporters to be well aware of his position to diffuse the tensions which were instead employed to cover for the second insurrection of the 2020 election, with the first being the actual fraud which needed to be ignored as Pence chose to do on Jan 6. Indeed, this was a betrayal to the entire nation, not just his party, and by someone for whom I had previously held a great deal of support and faith, which was unfortunately quite badly placed.

    Hence, yes, while it is true that I am no reader or follower of the Q postings, I need no soothsayer to direct my attention as to the stark betrayal which took place on Jan 6 and which Pence played the part of an essential element, an element which no other could or did play in securing the double tragedy which took place that day.

  9. Laura-

    Pence may not have “betray the nation”, but he betrayed a huge majority of the voters, over 86 million, by reputable accounts. When certain vital States Assemblies, voted to repudiate the names already sent in by their dubious “leaders” The Constitution allows another slate to be declared to replace the original one.

    Pence refused to even look at them, and then lied that he had NO authority but to O.K. the original slates-being merely a cypher.(a dummy)

    THAT’S a betrayal of his own Party by any standards.

  10. Mr. Markovsky:

    ” There are many Democrats and Republicans who share this opinion. Be that as it may, the pertinent question is whether this democracy, under the leadership of a demented man and marred by incompetence and corruption, is worth preserving.

    If “government of the people, by the people, for the people” is erased in the US, the rest of the world is in for a very, very rough ride — with no positive outcome in sight, save a miracle.

    is trying to save the country that no longer exists.

    Trust me… we exist.

  11. Hi, Peloni

    Actually, the vendettas being pursued currently are being leveraged exclusively against Trump, his company, his family and his lawyers.

    You are correct. I don’t know of any American who has been unjustly persecuted as often as President Donald John Trump. As he himself says, “They’re coming after you. I’m just in their way.”

  12. Hi, Laura

    America is absolutely worth preserving along with the principles it was founded upon. What needs to be destroyed is the democrat party, at least in its current form.

    You get 100% agreement from me on that — and probably from most Americans.

  13. The same polls which predicted a red wave.

    like much of the rest of us, that Ron and his colleagues have zero chance of defeating Trump,

  14. @Laura

    What needs to be destroyed is the democrat party

    I would suggest what needs to be destroyed is the Uniparty which works together against the American people, and this includes Dems and Reps. The baby shouldn’t be thrown out with the bathwater, but the bathwater from both parties needs to go. Notably, it was both sides of this bathwater Uniparty which led to Biden being confirmed following a coordinated attack on the capital which had to have an insight into Pence’s betray of the nation, something which was not known til the afternoon of Jan 6 when the army of govt operatives attacked the Capital. It isn’t just one party, and it isn’t about one candidate. It is about a eliminating the corruption which greases the palms of all involved, smothers dissent, and subject the people.

    Trump is too busy pursuing personal vendettas.

    Actually, the vendettas being pursued currently are being leveraged exclusively against Trump, his company, his family and his lawyers. Also, it is noteworthy to reflect upon the fact that the Dems have failed to apply such imaginative legal violations against ANY other candidate, which may be indicative of who it is that they feel they can work with and who it is they can not. Or perhaps it is simply that the Dems realize, like much of the rest of us, that Ron and his colleagues have zero chance of defeating Trump, and that they have the same worry with regards to Biden and his election fraud network.

  15. Lots of hyperbole and scaremongering, which one can always expect from a MAGA. It does still exist. American ideals exist within the vast majority of the American people. Unfortunately, a tiny minority of marxists have grabbed power within our institutions. That can be reversed by choosing the right people. And if we want to save America, we should elect Ron DeSantis. Trump is too busy pursuing personal vendettas.

    Indeed, is there anything left of our democracy that needs to be “jealously guarded and courageously defended?” Therefore, the issue is not whether Trump may destroy democracy in America; the tragedy is that he is trying to save the country that no longer exists.

  16. America is absolutely worth preserving along with the principles it was founded upon. What needs to be destroyed is the democrat party, at least in its current form.

  17. I hadi not known thatHamilton’s statue has been removed from the Rotunda, I can’t imagine why. Any additional information about this removal will be appreciated.