Major religions just celebrated important spiritual “rebirth” holidays. Contemplating our democracy’s spiritual direction, I’m alarmed. I once thought that our undivested president would only bankrupt us financially, as with four of his companies, and morally, reversing our social and environmental progress.

Given his invented scandals (voter fraud, Obama’s wiretapping, Rice’s spying), plus his “bomb first, plan later” mentality with increasingly escalated threats in words and actions while on his learner’s permit to driving history, I now also wonder how many Americans and others will die from a new war or its fallout, just to distract from Putin connections and unconstitutional foreign business (recently, with Japan and China).

Almost 70 years of avoiding responsibility (to contractors, students, or by letting one’s generals act without oversight), lashing out at “enemies” (4,000 lawsuits, tweets against the media, one’s critics individuals), playing by one’s own rules and rarely caring about others (without tax returns we don’t know any charitable contributions), Trump may never be reborn to “love the stranger”, “the enemy,” or even our country.

His indifference to rules, to history, to democracy, to others – may alter forever our lives. In a democracy, the public must take responsibility when its leader abdicates it.

Judy Silverstein

Spokane