Without peaceful transfer, nation will 'cease to exist'

President Donald Trump has sown the wind and reaped the whirlwind, and his enablers in Congress, including the North Country’s own Rep. Elise Stefanik, R- Schuylerville, have reaped it with him.

Notwithstanding Stefanik’s assertion that she supported the Republicans' challenge to the election of President-elect Joe Biden to “make sure that the American people have faith in the outcome” and that “only legal ballots and legal votes are counted,” it is clear that her adherence to Trump’s verifiably false claims that the election was stolen from him is in fact a calculation on her part that by doing so her future political ambitions will be realized.

Sadly, the inevitable result of Stefanik’s and the other Trump loyalists’ attempts to overturn the election in the face of at least 60 legal rulings concluding that the election was honest and free of fraud has been to cast doubt on the entire electoral process. Worse yet, it has led to unprecedented violence including the storming of the U.S. Capitol by far-right extremists and the death of at least five people.

The statements and actions of Trump and his loyalists leading to this violence are an affront to our democracy and should be denounced by all Americans including those who voted for Trump. Without the peaceful transfer of power, which is the hallmark of our democracy, the United States as we know it will cease to exist.

Lew Millenbach

Albany