Chris Sununu’s appearance on ABC’s “This Week” left me, for lack of a better word, stunned. Not because of his support for Donald Trump’s candidacy. I have always known Sununu, despite his support of Nikki Haley and his tepid criticism of Trump was in reality a closet Trump sycophant. What left me stunned was Sununu’s apparent disdain for democracy and the rule of law. Trump’s assault on democracy during his first term and the specter of further damage in a second do not register with the governor. For Sununu, inflation and border security are more important issues than actually having a functioning democracy. Not since the Civil War and the Jim Crow south in the 1950s and 60s has a sitting governor been so dismissive of a threat to the American experiment in democracy.

In response to the governor, I would say this, I expected better of you. Inflation and the border are important issues to be sure, but those issues have been with us off and on since this nation was founded. Whether or not one approves of Joe Biden’s performance, we still, for the moment at least, have a functioning democracy. Once we lose our respect for and commitment to democracy by electing a man such as Donald Trump, we risk losing democracy itself and once it is gone, it is gone. If the governor is correct and 51% of Americans are not swayed by the threat of democracy’s demise, it may already be on its way out. I and the other 49% hope he is wrong.

Michael Pelchat

Webster