“Despite democracy’s imperfection, no President should ever again be allowed to trample the rights of its people and manage the government as though he’s a King with a band of outlaws, bandits and murderers.” John Johnson II o2/18/26
By John Johnson II
This metaphorical title clearly symbolizes our Founding Fathers greatest fears for the viability of America’s democracy as a fledging “republic.” They did everything conceivable to protect and defend democracy. Yet knowing that democracy as a system of governing by men and women is always threaten when integrity and humanity are conceded to a demagogue.
The Constitution built a structure of shared power. Congress writes laws. The President executes them. The courts interpret them. Each branch was designed to restrain the others because the Framers understood something fundamental about human nature: unchecked authority breeds corruption, arrogance, and abuse.
No part of government was meant to dominate.
Balance was the cure and accountability was the medicine. Regrettably, a plot was devised by the Federalist Society to facilitate packing the Supreme Court with six conservative Justices by the current President.
Congress, historically protective of its authority, increasingly behaves like sycophants awaiting approval from the Executive. Oversight becomes performance. Investigation becomes inconvenient. Oaths to the Constitution are quietly replaced by loyalty to personality. The branch closest to the people becomes the least willing to defend them.
This concession of integrity and humanity is the oxygen a demagogue requires. He reframes limits as insults. He portrays scrutiny as sabotage. He teaches followers that democracy is slow, compromise is weakness, and only concentrated power can rescue national pride. Lawmakers, fearing political retaliation, trade institutional duty for short-term safety.
And slowly, the system destabilizes. Is SCOTUS to blame?
Racism functions as anesthesia. It persuades citizens to tolerate injuries to democracy so long as someone else appears to hurt more. Under its spell, voters accept decisions that ultimately reduce their voting power.
Here is the unavoidable verdict.
A government that transfers its strength to one individual ceases to function as a republic. Congress is unwilling to check whether power becomes ornamental. A public taught to admire domination will soon discover it has volunteered to be dominated.
The warning is plain, brutal, and immediate: democracy collapses less from attack than from permission and concession. It is amazing! When democracy enshrined slavery, legalized Jim Crow, endorsed segregation, viewed women as chattel, and tolerated voter suppression, it was worth keeping by Republicans and MAGA followers.
January 6, 2021, insurrection represented the first violent attack to overthrow the government. Now the attack against democratic controlled cities and murders of American citizens resembles the horrific tactics of the overthrown Nazi Germany. Tolerance of this kind of treatment from our own government by Republican Congresspersons is now reminiscent of the brutal and murderous treatment of Black and White Civil Rights protesters.
If Americans do not demand integrity and humanity from Congress and boundaries for the presidency, deterioration will not be dramatic. There will be no sudden thunderclap, only people wishing they had spoken-up and stood-up. Rather far too many have allowed clever diversionary media attractions and affordability issues to blind them to our crumbling democracy!
Corruption will circulate quietly.
Insatiable greed will occur gradually.
And one day, the nation will wake up to discover the system has stopped working — because it handed control to a demagogue who only knows how to dismantle democratic institutions.
YOU BE THE JUDGE!
