If all goes as planned, this issue of The Light Magazine should be distributed immediately prior to the so-called mid-term elections which will determine the composition of the next House and Senate. Everyone’s hope is that the electorate will vote based on the information they have digested about the candidates. That would be divine, but also unlikely. Rather, voters will be swayed by personal tastes or party affiliations alone, not political positions or what the candidates will do for their constituents.
Hanging over this event like a Halloween ghost is what might transpire if one or more of our states, or the DOJ, files a legal proceeding against Donald Trump. Why should this matter? The reason it should is that it could have a profound affect on the election. Voters may take great umbrage at such an “attack” and react by voting for candidates who support or who oppose former President Trump’s politics or demeanor, regardless of their political positions. This could result in huge support for Red candidates as a backlash against attempts to put the former president in jail, or at least in hot water for the foreseeable future. Or, a state or the DOJ could seek to avoid this type of conflict by aiming its rancor at a Trump family member, or a close friend or aide, hoping to blunt an uncontrollable backlash if Trump himself was personally named. That kind of effort may be so transparent, however, that the reaction would be the same as though the former president himself were the direct target.
It should go without saying that this is not the way people are supposed to vote in a democracy. Taunting voters with undue influence in any direction is the antithesis of how democratic elections are supposed to be structured. If that is what happens, we no longer live in a democracy. And that may be the case. Recently, organizations like the DOJ and various state investigative agencies have been acting more like the gestapo than as protectors of our democratic principles. In fact, the DOJ seems to present itself as the face of a government entity designed to en-force the whims of the White House rather than the desires of our citizens.
What lies in the balance of the results recorded in the next few days in electing members of both houses of Congress is our democracy. If the election results are dictated by threats or pressure in one form or another, rather than by choices made voluntarily by voters, that will dictate our future as a country.
Will we have a democracy or not? The results will be here soon.
