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Is Christianity A Key Ingredient Of U.S. Authoritarianism?*
Having abandoned any attempt to advance a platform outside culture wars and Trump’s retribution, the Republican Party has a new manifesto that threatens religion and its free exercise, Christianity, and western liberal democracy.
Wounded but still viable, the institutions of government withstood the Big Lie and Jan. 6. People in positions to know are sounding the alarm that Trump and his confederates learned from their mistakes. They say America’s experiment in liberal democracy will not survive another Trump presidency. They portend that an election handing Trump the victory in the 2024 would be the country’s last to give voters any meaningful choice — in an open democratic sense.
How does a democratic republic transform into authoritarianism? Would that require a breakdown in the independence and oversight of at least one branch of government outside the executive? How likely is that to happen if Trump wins?
I may as well exercise my First Amendment right not to remain silent while I still have it. In the probable event the United States Supreme Court vacates the Colorado Supreme Court decision declaring Trump unqualified to be placed on the ballot under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, between now and the 2024 presidential election I plan to address what the country has in store if…