Editor,
In his recent missive, Fred Wilferth maintains that only Mr. Trump can save democracy. I offer this letter in an effort to help him understand why this might not be the case. Indeed, Trump undermines democracy in many ways: by his violent attempt to disrupt the constitutional order on January 6; by his interference in elections in Georgia and elsewhere; by his support for voter suppression; by his truly frightening Project 25; by his obsequious fawning over dictators/authoritarians like Putin, Orban, el-Sissi and others; and in other ways almost too numerous to mention. But the most important is Trump’s undermining of the rule of law, one of the founding principles of democracy.
Because Trump is fundamentally dishonest and corrupt, the rule of law is not his friend. He or one of his businesses is frequently exposed for lawlessness, as for example with the transparently fraudulent Trump University, and Trump Foundation, his civil sexual assault or rape case, his civil banking and insurance fraud case and the latest porn star hush money case.
Many of these cases were decided before Biden’s election, so before he could “weaponize” the government. Although one would think if Biden weaponized, he would have de-weaponized for Hunter. In any case, in response to having lost all these cases Trump attacks the judges, prosecutors, investigators, grand juries and trial juries, made up of honest Americans doing their jobs.
Trump’s latest attack, which Mr. Wilferth parrots, focuses on the porn star case in which Trump was convicted of 34 felonies. These latest convictions are of course in state cases and there is not a shred of evidence that Biden was in any way involved. Mr. Wilferth is correct in assuming the jury in Trump’s latest case was handpicked, but it was handpicked by Trump’s attorney, with the active involvement of Trump, in conjunction with a prosecutor. While none of this weaponization nonsense is based on any kind of evidence, with Trump’s active encouragement, there are those who believe it, and in turn begin to distrust the justice system.
This unfortunately undermines the rule of law and constitutes the greatest, but not the only, damage that Trump has done to this country.
Dr. Bernd J. Fischer
Oak Harbor
