Declare what’s unacceptable

A year ago I was doing research on a book that required a long, steady look at the period of World War II. I had always before thought of the horrible events of the mid-20th century as an aberration. For some strange reason, a portion of the world’s population went off its rocker and chose to follow a series of black-uniformed monsters. Naturally cooler heads prevailed and things returned to normal.

My more careful look at those events stirred up a chilling thought. Maybe democracy is the aberration. After all, humans had barely emerged from the era of monarchs when it sent up this clamor for dictators. In the brief period from 1930 to 1950, large portions of the populations of Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, China, Korea, Spain, Poland, much of South America, to name a few, developed a preference for the order of guns and obedience.

Now Donald Trump has used the strongman appeal to take over one great American institution, the Republican Party. My own hope is that voters, Republicans, Democrats and Independents, will use this rather spoiled election at least as a declaration of what we will not accept.

William Stimson

Spokane