Give Donald Trump credit. In a 2-second photo op in front of a historic church, holding high a Bible, growling and scowling, he defamed the Bible and the U.S. Constitution.
At a time of national crisis, he said nothing, which said everything. No words of empathy or a healing recitation of our national purpose.
Trump is an autocrat, bent on hijacking our 244-year experiment in democratic rule. He is surrounded by supplicants and shills who aid and abet his enterprise. In words and actions, we must resist.
The words of Gen. James Mattis, Trump’s first secretary of defense, are a clarion call for democratic action. Mattis wrote: “When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the constitutional rights of their fellow citizens – much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander in chief, with military leadership standing alongside.”
Register and vote. The democracy you save may be your own or your children’s.
STEVEN M. GORDON
Hopkinton