By Vicki Bush

Special to Leesburg Daily Commercial USA TODAY NETWORK

As a child standing at my mother’s knee, I watched as she closed the red, white, and blue striped voting booth curtain; that very small space becoming a sanctuary. Going into mom mode, she lifted me up, pointed toward a large letter and asked if I knew what it was. She explained to me why she marked an X in certain boxes; what it meant and why it was important. Then and there I received my first lesson in representative democracy — why voting matters.

Every time American’s solemnly place their hand over their heart, reverently bow their head in solidarity, march for civil rights, and resolve to vote; we show a duty to conscience — an oath to democracy.

Our Continental Congress gave declaration, stood sentinel, and resisted the arrogant bullying of British authoritarian supremacy. Yearning to breathe in a land free to pursue a common life of dreams fulfilled, our founders activated empowerment. The hope of freedom over tyranny. They gave testimony to the dawning of liberty over the shadow of fear, want, and injustice.

Two hundred and forty-four years hence, the people of these United States are feeling the push and pull of our constitutional democracy being led astray. Replacing American exceptionalism with Russian greatness, a pyramid scheme of faux governmental leadership has loop holed, fine lined, swindled and deceived our country into less of an America than ever before.

In 1944, a speech to the American people by FDR’s vice president Henry A. Wallace, was a timeline red flag gut check. A warning to stay attentive to airwave, newsprint and street corner soapbox anti-American propaganda.

In Wallace’s words — “American Fascists are most easily recognizable by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. They preach discrimination against other religious, racial, or economic groups.

They cultivate every fissure of disunity. They use every opportunity to impugn democracy.

They use isolationism as a slogan to conceal their own selfish imperialism. They cultivate hate and distrust of allies. They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective to which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power, so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously they may keep the people in eternal subjection”; colonialized control to overpower and dominate.

The cold, hard, metal entrance gates at many Nazi concentration camps espoused the words Arbeit Mach Frei – “work sets you free.” That crushed and twisted ironwork language a bitter representation of the toxic mindset that is antisematic white nationalist fascism. False expectation — when in reality subjugation and death awaits. In April 2020 as Americans became consumed by the Covid-19 coronavirus, Republican leadership began glorifying death as a noble surrender for their anti-cultural ‘great replacement’ revolution. Reminding us, once again, that this is not such a different time; it is a distinct time in American history – a time for the Republican party to lose their governance.

Republicanism has morphed into a shadowy production of a decades past once worthy opponent. Unrecognizable even unto itself, rank hypocrisy conservatism, family values, and faith lay bare on an alabaster alter of deceit. A Pandora’s Box of one-party suppression of its citizens and mass human rights violations of oppressive zero-tolerance where abusive cruelty has always been the point.

Surrendering to the obsolescence of truth, the Republican Party has become soul-sick.

They are the chaos that consumes us. They are the fires and floods that ravage our states. They are the economy that keeps us subservient.

They are the terrorist militias that threaten us.

They are the brute force that steals our breath.

They are the virus used against us. They are the destroyer of our future.

Fighting for America, my father, a gunner against fascism from 1941 through 1945 bled the truth of tyranny firsthand. The Nazi axis power structure used the Great Depression to advance authoritarianism and world domination.

Starving, out-of-work, and in despair, the people were easy marks for predator dictators who promised to make their lives great again.

Espousing duty, constituting honor, and loving their country, warriors for democracy took up a call to arms to free from bondage many of their lineage still on that ancestral soil.

Fighting four long years against those fascist powers who sought allied destruction, genocide and the authoritarian domination of the four corners of the earth — American’s did not let the bully’s win.

Watching the horizon in hopes of catching a big wave we must be willing to work for it; as we wait for it. We must let tribal protectionism and apocalyptic fervor wash far out to sea.

All Americans deserve a competent president. A mentor led by decency, fundamental values, and a life-long moral compass. We need real governmental leadership. Leadership with political solutions building better political capital for the future.

We know Joe. He knows our neighborhoods, and the neighborhood at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be the strong leaders we need at this indivisible moment in time.

We can do no less than generations before us.

We cannot, and will not, let the bully’s win. Eyes open America!