Dana Black: Re-electing Donald Trump is a threat to democracy

I can’t seem to wrap my head around how this presidential election is so close. Supposedly, as a nation of immigrants, we believe in freedom, justice and opportunity for all. That inherently there is more that binds us than divides us. At this moment, I can’t seem to feel that when I see millions of Americans willing to toss aside our democracy for an autocrat, felon and liar who is ready to end this great experiment of self-governance.

I recognize many Americans have been getting the short end of the stick when it comes to economic and social policies, no matter who has been in office. Wages have not kept up with the cost of living, and the struggle is real. But is that really enough of a reason to tank democracy and the freedoms we have worked so hard for? When it is because of those freedoms that we can find solutions for our problems together? It is because of our democracy that we continue to make progress.

How can they support the candidate who represents a party that restricts freedoms? I’m not being hyperbolic; we see women today have less control of their bodies than any time in the last 50 years, parents of trans youth are unable to seek the gender affirming care their child needs, and so many are working to ban books from public libraries and restrict the freedom of thought. But here we are: 70 million Americans are willing to cast their vote for the Republican candidate for POTUS, who has said he would be a dictator on day one, prosecute his political opponents, and scrap the Constitution.

I remember learning about the most inspiring line from the poem “The New Colossus,” written on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Now we have a Republican candidate doing everything he can to demonize immigrants. Like Ruby Bridges in 1960, young students in Springfield, Ohio, require police escorts just to attend school because of the many bomb threats inspired by his lies. Has so much time passed that we have forgotten the amount of trauma inflicted on a whole generation of young people just trying to get an education?

I remember learning in government class that dictators were awful because they controlled their citizens and restricted their freedom of expression and human dignity. They were considered enemies of democracy, yet the Republican candidate embraces dictators from North Korea, Hungary and Russia. Has so much time passed since President Reagan said at the Brandenburg Gate, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

I remember learning that the United States is a nation of laws and that no one is above the law. Yet he is the first former president to be criminally indicted. He has been found guilty of business fraud on 34 counts, indicted in federal court for election interference, and faces state charges for attempting to unlawfully overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. He was found civilly liable for defamation against a woman he sexually assaulted. Has so much time passed that we no longer look at the character of the person seeking the highest office in the land?

James Baldwin said, “Time catches up with kingdoms and crushes them; it gets its teeth into doctrines and rends them; time reveals the foundations on which any kingdom rests and eats at those foundations, and it destroys doctrines by proving them to be untrue.” We are witnessing those words now.•

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Black is former deputy chairwoman for engagement for the Indiana Democratic Party and a former candidate for the Indiana House. Send comments to ibjedit@ibj.com.

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