I grieve for America

by Chris Love, Corvallis

I grieve for the America that I was once proud of: A thriving democracy. A moral leader respected by nations around the world. A country whose Supreme Court and Congress acted on their constitutional mandate to serve as separate, balancing powers to the executive branch. A nation where immigrants who committed only the civil violation of being here without authorization were not rounded up and deported to dangerous countries as criminals — without due process — regardless of sometimes years of contributions to their local communities. A nation that did not choose to budget $170 billion to support masked men enforcing this inhumane immigration policy. 

I grieve for American leadership who once funded critical scientific and medical research at NIH, CDC, and universities, not advocating changes in medical policy based on suspect evidence. I mourn for a nation in which the President’s stated primary mission, regardless of political party, was to improve the overall well-being of all Americans, not to admittedly seek revenge against political opposition. I miss the America in which  we were not learning almost every day about another unconstitutional presidential power grab to address false national emergencies. I also mourn for our nation whose leaders did not threaten the free speech of political opponents and comedians, and perhaps next, of the rest of us. And for an America that did not encourage the rewriting of history to make the lives of enslaved human beings sound good. 

Yes, I grieve for the America that we seem to be losing. Will we stand by and watch as inch by inch — for now — the powers that be replace democracy with authoritarianism?  

I pray that we stand up for our beloved American constitutional democracy before we lose it completely.