Don’t ignore warning about Trump

In her Dec. 3 op-ed, Luisana Perez, who fled the dictatorship of Venezuelan tyrant Nicolás Maduro, attempted to play a modern-day Paul Revere and warn us that our own dictator is coming: Donald Trump.

A wave of responding letter writers vehemently criticized her for claiming such a thing. Well, I whole heartedly agree with her. Trump is neutering and dismantling the Constitution and rule of law before our very eyes.

Trump is disobeying and ignoring legal supeonas for documents; he’s forbidding witnesses to testify in legal hearings; he’s obstructing crucial investigations; he’s belittling, insulting, bullying, intimidating, and firing patriotic, career diplomats, intelligence officials, and military officers — some of whom he appointed — to prevent the truth from being learned.

Attorney General Bill Barr serves Trump, not our country. Republicans in the Congress and the Senate not only sit as an idle, collective witness to it all, they, too, obstruct, derelict in their duty to serve as checks and balances and uphold the Constitution and the laws that have enabled the United States to serve as a beacon of liberty and justice for more than two centuries.

Critics of Perez — blinded by low unemployment and a decent economy — fail to see the big picture as Trump cunningly consolidates power and chips away at what has made the United States great and free. Perez lived this in Venezuela. We ignore her at our own peril.

Scott Benarde, West Palm Beach