At a crossroads

Dear editor:

We, as a country, are at a crossroads. Not since Richard Nixon have we had the oligarchs make such a determined effort to take away our rights as a free people. We are at war with those that believe we’re ripe for the picking. Our complacency and desire to believe the loudest noise as being the best choice in our elections has given the oligarchs, aka billionaire class, the courage to openly seize our government away from us.

We have in control of all three houses the billionaire class. They have unrestricted access to everything we hold dear as a free people. Our president flaunts this access by installing his wife, our first lady, in a separate apartment in New York City. He takes golfing excursions every weekend to his private club at our expense, sends his children overseas to negotiate business contracts that benefit Trump Industries at our expense.

Prior to Donald J. Trump’s election to the position of president, he had dealings with Russia that are supposed to be investigated by an impartial bipartisan committee. Trump has fired everyone that was given the authority or had by law the authority to investigate these allegations.

The total lack of respect for the people of the United States of America by the Trump clan is beyond the pale. Trump has turned the White House into a cash cow or an ATM. We, the people, are supposed to let him do it because the people elected him president. This is with allegations of his complicity with Russia hacking our electoral process.

For our government to work, it demands the people participate at the lowest level to the highest. As Thom Hartmann has said many times, “Democracy is not a spectator sport.”

If we want to have anything to bequeath our children, you sitting on the sidelines, voting for noise or not supporting people that will work to deliver

what our Founding Fathers set forth upon this country, will leave them chattels or slaves to a few that see them as dispensable and best left dumb and uneducated. Our democracy was an experiment that only with effort would succeed. The Federalists in the beginning of this experiment in self-governing didn’t think we were capable of doing the job. Today, it looks like they may be right.

We have in the White House a man that thinks we are too stupid to govern ourselves. He’s put in his cabinet all those who agree with him. If we stay home from these midterm elections replacing representatives that have been moved from Congress to the White House with more of the same, our children will be the ones to reap the consequences. The GOP is sending all their top guns to intimidate and coerce we, the people, into putting more of the same back in Congress, thereby ensuring success of the takeover of America by the billionaire class without firing a shot.

Again, we’re at a crossroads. Vote or don’t. It’s your choice.

Judy Ladd Hot Springs