Complicit silence

The Republican Party, from top to bottom, has broken faith with the idea of democracy as a governing principle and is ill-equipped to handle the challenges of the 21st century. The mockery of a campaign they ran did not even boast a platform — no strategy, no policies, nor any indication of how they hoped to tackle the problems facing our country. Their whole governing philosophy has been reduced to one thing: President Donald Trump, who as of this writing still refuses to concede the election, continuing to spew false claims and conspiracies unhinged from any semblance of truth.

The party and its adherents either echo his claims or stand in complicit silence — as though there is dignity in allowing such lies to run their course. But if you believe in democracy and the Constitution as the sacred principles sustaining this 244-yearold republic, then such silence is blasphemy.

I imagine Republicans don’t believe Trump’s absurd and dangerous claims, but they are content to let the absurdity play out — and should it somehow break in their favor, watch their silence morph seamlessly into consent.

To not speak out against authoritarianism is to willfully abdicate allegiance to the truth, to stand for party over nation, to substitute good governance and the health of the commonwealth for a lie. Republicans understand this isn’t fair, lawful, democratic, or right. I have to think that they simply don’t care. Because democracy to them has lost its sheen, has become quaint, antiquated, incapable of satiating their hunger for what, they know not.

Drew Lopenzina, Norfolk