Our democracy is being ruined by a minority

To The Eagle:

The overall state of democracy in the U.S. declined last year, according to an annual ranking published by The Economist's Intelligence Unit, which cited the continued erosion of trust in the country’s institutions.

The report measures five main categories — electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture — and assigns scores to each one. The report cited the efforts by former President Trump and his allies to subvert the 2020 election results with unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud, as a reason we have been rated a “flawed democracy.”

According to the same report “Across the world in 2020, citizens experienced the biggest rollback of individual freedoms ever undertaken by governments during peacetime,” and that “Most people concluded, on the basis of the evidence about a new, deadly disease, that preventing a catastrophic loss of life justified a temporary loss of freedom.” We temporarily traded some “liberties” for public health and safety in order to get the Covid epidemic under control. “Rights” curtailed during the public health crisis are now being restored completely. Now, all of you “patriots” who tried to turn our public health emergency into a bogus constitutional crisis can now go to restaurants and public venues without having to wear facial masking along with the rest of us, who have patiently conformed to the well organized, scientifically grounded infection control regulations mandated by state and local governments. It’s hardly ground breaking news that our democracy has been weakened. Its very nature has proven it to be susceptible to powerful people with ill intent. Ours is after all a government for, by and of its people. Therein lies the rub. People. Anything, no matter how carefully constructed, can be degraded and ruined by a dedicated minority of selfish, ignorant people. Our democracy is one of those things.

JB Bouchard

Puget Island