Preserving Democracy

I HONESTLY THINK that if I had been born and raised in a country governed by a dicator, that I would have grown up accepting dictatorship as the natural, best form of government, and probably would consider myself fortunate to live under such a benevolent ruler. Since all dictators try to present themselvesasbenevolent,truechampionsof "the people", and since they tend to try to reinforce this message with a constant stream of propaganda, I, most probably, would have bought into it. But who knows? Maybe not. Maybe I would be a dissidant advocating for more democracy in our beloved fatherland, or whatever. Each day I feel more as if I am fighting to preserve, or to create for the first time in reality, democracy in a country in which a large percentage of my fellow citizens wants to replace democracy with fascist oligarchy or dictatorship, take your pick. We all know that we the American people have never had a true direct people's democracy, but rather, a representative democracy, a republic. Our "representatives" turn out to be the wealthy white male class, which in today's reality translaes to plutocracy, government of and by and for the wealthy corporate elite. James Madison, like most of the founders, believed that ninety nine percent of us the American people are unqualified and incapable of governing themselves, must be represented and cared for by the superior one percent wealthy powerful elite. Current events, one must admit, sometimes seems to validate this negative attitude. That is exactly what his constitution, which we still use today, establishes, a representative plutocratic, very indirect democracy. Thomas Jefferson, Madison's mentor, we much more favorable towards an actual direct democracy, one in whichwethe American people actually have power, and govern ourselves. Within five years of the establishement of the constitution, Madison regretted it, because he saw that the wealthy elite ruling calsshad no intention or representing anybody other than themselves, and their own economic and political interests. And so it has been ever since, and so it is today, our American oligarchy-plutocracy, in which the wealthy elite few own and control the American government, and most everything else. Obama,in a campaign speech the other day,reminded us that democracy and free speech must be fought for. Jefferson believed that every new generation would have to fight for freedom from tyranny; a bloody revolution for democracy about every twenty years. It seems rather obvious that most people would rather be subjected to the tyranny of dictatorship thatn engage in a violent fight to preserve democracy several times during their lives; Jefferson pointed this out in the "Declaration of Independence". When democracy fails to work, when it becomes corrupted and ineffective,it becomes tempting to replace it with a less corrptible, more effective form of government, rather than to take the trouble to repair, restore, and perpetuate democracy. Then too, whenver democracy yields precisely that results we want, but is opposed by a powerful opposition movement, it becomes tempting to chisel our democratic achievements in stone by preserving them under an immmutable, unchangeable, authoritarian government. There are always forces working to undermine and destroy democracy,and there always will be. Democracy must be supported, defended, and strengthened by non violent political movements which include voter education, expanding voting rights, and removing the corrupting influence of corporate money from American politics, among other changes. The Trump movement is content to codify the Trump agenda in stone, in authoritarian government. The rest of us, the majority of Americans, must fight for our democracy by fighting to destroy the Trump movement.