Ballots are our weapons

What has happened to my America? What has happened to our Supreme Court?

I do not recognize the hatred, anger, bitterness, bigotr y and misogyny that are now rampant in our land. I served in the military in the 1960s when our country was bitterly divided over a war that should never have happened. We worked our way through that moment of turmoil and divisiveness and continued our march towards making the aspirational ideals of our founding documents a reality.

This process of bending the arc of history towards justice is now on hold or worse. Is the past to be our future as the Supreme Court seems to be saying? We are learning how close we came to losing our democracy in Jan. 2021. Our institutions held then, but barely and only because of a few courageous citizens were guided by their principles and not by their politics.

Who knew how fragile our democracy really was? If we had lost it then, would we ever have recovered?

The very conservative former Judge John Michael Luttig, with whom I probably disagree on practically everything, has said that he sees a continuing clear and present danger to our democracy. On that point, I completely agree.

Our recent yesterdays were frightening; our tomorrows remain uncertain and undefined. Only the present offers the opportunity to take steps to end the threat nationalistic tribalism and nascent autocracy pose to our democracy. As has often been said in a variety of ways, evil will prevail, if good people do nothing. We can do something. We can vote for principled politicians at all levels of government who are Americans first and foremost and not ideologues of any stripe. Our ballots are the weapons that we have to preserve our Republic. BOB HOHLFELDER Boulder