Richard Davis: Trump represents most recent threat to end democracy in U.S.

To The Daily Sun,

I am 84. My father (d. 1968), who was a lecturer and writer on world affairs; and a close friend of his, who was a career FBI agent whose specialty was communist subversion; both men strongly feared that fascism was a greater threat to America than communism was. Time seems to be validating their fear.

In the 1930s, there was Father Coughlin and the America-Firsters _ pro-Nazi sympathizers like Charles Lindberg and Ambassador Joseph Kennedy; in the 1950s, Joe McCarthy and McCarthyism; in the 1960s, The John Birch Society; and now, President Donald Trump and his supporters. In all cases, Americans who — consciously or not — were willing to wound or kill American democracy for the sake of their own selfish and imagined goals and objectives; and in all cases, believing that they were true American patriots.

(They love to wave the flag, while they also love to hate Jews, African-Americans, and others.)

Trump's open attacks on democratic institutions and, most recently, election procedures have been obvious to serious followers of current affairs; but it has been shocking and appalling to realize U.S. officials do nothing to stop him.

So now, we'll see if American democracy can survive this fourth dangerous attack in recent history.

Richard Davis 

Thornton