I think and write about politics from the perspective of a Christian who loves democracy. The American Revolution is one of the greatest things that ever happened, for the liberation of the human spirit, and I believe it is beautiful in the eyes of Christ.
Because of the American Revolution, we live in a constitutional democracy, ruled by laws, not by men. We take it for granted nowadays, but when it happened some 240 years ago, it was a massive sea change in human affairs. For thousands of years, all the countries on earth had been ruled by kings and queens, who earned their place not by their merits or their achievements, but simply by being born the son or daughter of the previous king. These monarchs, and the aristocracy who supported them, held themselves out as better human beings than the common man and woman, fit to rule and entitled to exploit them for no other reason than birthright. They even went so far as to maintain that they were chosen by God to be king or queen, and that made them a kind of god on earth.
The American Revolution changed that. As Americans, we have believed for more than 240 years that we are capable of governing ourselves. We choose our own leaders. The top of our political pyramid is not a king who rules by edict according to his royal whim, much less a god, but a president who is a fellow citizen, subject to the same laws as the rest of us.
Unfortunately, the president who currently occupies the Oval Office wants to destroy the American Revolution and render the Constitution moot. If it wasn’t clear enough on the campaign trail, it is blazingly obvious by now. We all know how admiringly he speaks of Vladimir Putin. Since becoming president, he now speaks the same way of Kim Jong Un, the murderous tyrant who rules North Korea. In an interview with Fox News recently, he noted that the North Korean people “sit up and pay attention when [Kim Jong Un] speaks.” He then went on to say, “I want my people to do the same.” After recent negotiations with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, he spoke admiringly of Xi’s new status as “president for life.” He said, “I think that’s great. Maybe we will have to give that a shot someday.” These are not jokes, folks. No American president should ever say anything remotely like this. It is a betrayal of all that America stands for.
To guard against the rise of a dictator, our Founding Fathers put in place a system of checks and balances, consisting of the Congress, the courts, and the free press. This president consistently attacks every institution that could hold him accountable. He attacks judges who rule in favor of the law and against himself, even resorting to race-based jabs. He attacks the free press as “fake news”, when in fact it was actual fake news that helped him get elected. Vladimir Putin funded hundreds of internet trolls to make up completely false news stories favorable to his candidacy, and pumped them out on the internet by the thousands, where they were swallowed whole by his supporters and forwarded as the truth. Now his ties to the Russians have been investigated by a fellow Republican named Robert Mueller, who by all accounts is as honest a cop as you will find anywhere. What is the President’s strategy? Impugn the integrity of the investigation.
This man wants nobody able to hold him accountable, and if he achieves that, nobody will be safe. He must be stopped, and stopped now, not just for our own sake, but for the sake of our children and our grandchildren. For if he succeeds, the United States of America would prove to be a failed experiment – just as its detractors said it would be, from the beginning – and the American Revolution would be lost. All the soldiers who died defending freedom and democracy would have died in vain, and our children and grandchildren would live under the yoke of tyranny.
